NZX approves Woodward Partners Securities as institutional broker

Woodward Partners Securities, the first new institutional stockbroking firm to open in New Zealand for close to a decade, has been approved by NZX.

Neville Todd, Managing Principal at Woodward Partners Securities says, “The institutional stockbroking arm of Woodward Partners has been opened in response to the taxation reforms in recent years, the growth of savings in New Zealand particularly around KiwiSaver and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and the prospect of future listings in the electricity and dairy sectors.”

Woodward Partners Limited was founded in 2009 as a boutique investment bank to provide advisory and transactional advice to corporate and government clients, and the advisory practice has grown steadily since then.

Neville Todd, the newly appointed managing principal and head of trading at Woodward Partners Securities, was formerly the New Zealand managing director of institutional broking firm Citigroup Global Markets and a co-founding director of Milford Asset Management.

Mr Todd says, “In recent years we have seen several new boutique fund managers establish successfully on the back of the savings reforms in New Zealand and we believe there is an opportunity for a new firm such as ours to service these and the existing local and global funds management firms investing in New Zealand companies.”

The firm has also recruited veteran equity analyst, David Stanley, the former head of research at Macquarie in New Zealand.  Mr Stanley was a highly-ranked equity analyst in New Zealand before undertaking academic research in Canada, and he is well-known to the investment community.

Woodward Partners Limited co-founder, Nick Lewis, CFA, has also joined the broking business.  Mr Lewis trained as a mechanical engineer and has more than thirty years of experience working in and covering the global energy and utility sectors, including seven years at JP Morgan in New York.  Mr Lewis is an accredited Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).