We publish details of the Fund's listed equity holdings, direct investments and external investment mandates every six months.

Portfolio Disclosures as at 31 December 2023

This includes a complete listing of:

• Our global equity holdings
• Our New Zealand listed equities, including percentage ownership
• Our external investment managers
• Our New Zealand external investment mandates and their underlying portfolio companies
• Our internal mandates
• Our direct investments, where the information is not commercially sensitive. 

Equity holdings

There are a number of overlapping factors that drive how much stock the Fund holds in a particular company:

• The Fund's global equity holdings are managed by a number of external investment managers. These managers have discretion to make decisions about which stocks to hold on the Fund's behalf (other than stocks we have excluded from the portfolio). The Guardians are not privy to these managers' thinking on specific stocks.

• The composition of the Fund's external manager line up changes through time.

• Around three quarters of the Fund's Actual Portfolio was managed 'passively', tracking global equity indices. This approach is common among institutional investors seeking cost-effective, diversified exposure to share markets around the world. These 'passive' investments are selected according to market capitalisation rather than through active stock picking. Holdings are also influenced by changes in index composition over time.

• Whether we choose to achieve exposure to global equity markets through stock selection (either active or passive) or through the use of derivative instruments (e.g. swaps or futures) which replicate the performance of particular subsets of the market, such as country or global sharemarket indices.

• Growth in the size of the Fund over time.

• Changes in the NZD exchange rate with foreign currencies.

Changes over time in the value of the Fund's investments in listed companies are therefore influenced by a range of factors. Increases or decreases in the value of a stockholding should not be interpreted as a reflection of a particular view of the company by the Guardians.