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Business valuations
We offer expert valuation advice in transactions, regulatory and administrative matters, and matters subject to dispute – valuing businesses, shares and intangible assets in a wide range of industries.
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Capital markets
You need corporate finance specialists experienced in international capital markets on your side if you’re buying or selling financial securities.
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Complex and international services
Our experience of multi-jurisdictional insolvencies coupled with our international reputation allows us to deliver the best possible outcome for all stakeholders.
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Corporate insolvency
Our corporate investigation and recovery teams can help you manage insolvency situations and facilitate the best outcome.
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Debt advisory
An optimal funding structure for your organisation presents unprecedented opportunities, but achieving this can be difficult without a trusted advisor.
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Expert witness
Our expert witnesses analyse, interpret, summarise and present complex financial and business-related issues which are understandable and properly supported.
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Financial models
A sound financial model will help you understand the impact of your decisions before you make them. Talk to us about our user-friendly models.
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Forensic and investigation services
We provide investigative accounting and litigation support services for commercial, matrimonial, criminal, business valuation and insurance disputes.
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Independent business review
Is your business viable? Will it remain viable in the future? A thorough independent business review can help your organisation answer these fundamental questions.
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IT forensics
Effective ESI analysis is integral to the success of your business. Our IT forensics experts have the technical expertise to identify, preserve and interrogate electronic data.
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Mergers and acquisitions
Grant Thornton provides strategic and execution support for mergers, acquisitions, sales and fundraising.
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Raising finance
Raising finance - funders value partners who can deliver a robust financial model, a sound business strategy and rigorous planning. We can guide you through the challenges that these transactions can pose and help you build a foundation for long term success once the deal is done.
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Relationship property services
Grant Thornton offers high quality independent advice on the many financial issues associated with relationship property from considering an individual financial issue to all aspects of a complex settlement.
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Restructuring and turnaround
Grant Thornton’s restructuring and turnaround service capabilities include cash flow, liquidity management and forecasting; crisis and interim management; financial advisory services to companies and parties in transition and distress
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Transaction advisory
Our depth of market knowledge will steer you through the transaction process. Grant Thornton’s dynamic teams offer range of financial, commercial and operational expertise.
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Corporate tax
Grant Thornton can identify tax issues, risks and opportunities in your organisation and implement strategies to improve your bottom line.
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Employment tax
Grant Thornton’s advisers can help you with PAYE (payroll tax), Kiwisaver, fringe benefits tax (FBT), student loans, global mobility services, international tax
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Global mobility services
Our team can help expatriates and their employers deal with tax and employment matters both in New Zealand and overseas. With the correct planning advice, employee allowances and benefits may be structured to avoid double taxation and achieve tax savings.
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GST
GST has the potential to become a minefield and can be expensive when it goes wrong. Our technical knowledge can help you minimise the negative impact of GST
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International tax
International tax rules are undergoing their biggest change in a generation. Tax authorities around the world are increasingly vigilant, especially when it comes to global operations.
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Research and Development
R&D tax incentives are often underused and misunderstood – is your business maximising opportunities for making claims?
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Tax compliance
Our advisers help clients manage the critical issue of compliance across accountancy regulations, corporation law and tax. We also offer business and wealth advisory services, which means we can provide a seamless and tax-effective offering to our clients.
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Transfer pricing
Tax authorities are demanding transparency in international arrangements. We businesses comply with regulations and use transfer pricing as a strategic planning tool.
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Audit methodology
Our five step audit methodology offers a high quality service wherever you are in the world and includes planning, risk assessment, testing internal controls, substantive testing, and concluding and reporting
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Audit technology
We apply our audit methodology with an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite. Our technology has been developed to produce quality audits that are effective and efficient.
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Financial reporting advisory
Our financial reporting advisers have the expertise to help you deal with the constantly evolving regulatory environment.
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Business architecture
Our business architects help businesses with disruptive conditions, business expansion and competitive challenges; the deployment of your strategy is critical to success.
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Cloud services
Our team is led by cloud business experts who tailor services to the needs of your organisation, from strategy and implementation to ongoing services assurance.
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Internal audit
Our internal audits deliver independent assurance over key controls within your riskiest processes, proving what works and what doesn’t and recommending improvements.
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IT advisory
Our hands on product experience, extensive functional knowledge and industry insights help clients solve complex IT and technology issues
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IT privacy and security
IT privacy and security should support your business strategy. Our pragmatic approach focuses on reducing cyber security risks specific to your organisation
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Organisational & cultural change
The key to sustainable and future growth is a unified organisation operating within a strong cultural context, where transparency and communication are the priority for Kaimahi, and where visible leadership means walking the talk – but where does that journey begin?
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Payroll assurance
Our specialist payroll assurance team can conduct a review of your payroll system configuration and processes, and then help you and your team to implement any necessary recalculations.
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PCI DSS
Our information security specialists are approved Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) that have been qualified by the PCI Security Standards Council to independently assess merchants and service providers.
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Process improvement
As your organisation grows in size and complexity, processes that were once enabling often become cumbersome and inefficient. To maintain growth, your business must remain flexible, agile and profitable
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Procurement/supply chain
Procurement and supply chain inputs will often dominate your balance sheet and constantly evolve for organisations to remain competitive and meet changing customer requirements
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Project assurance
Major programmes and projects expose you to significant financial and reputational risk throughout their life cycle. Don’t let these risks become a reality.
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Risk management
We understand that growing companies need to establish robust internal controls, and use information technology to effectively mitigate risk.
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Robotic process automation (RPA)
RPA is emerging as the most sophisticated form of automation used to help businesses become more agile and remain competitive in the face of today’s ongoing digital disruption.
Government’s health budget must look to the future of care
The health sector needs significant investment, but where is that money going to come from? In our series analysing Budget 2018, Grant Thornton’s Pam Newlove says the government needs to look to the private sector.
How revolutionary do voters want the new government to be? It’s a question that must be considered, as the government approaches the delivery of their first budget. While it has a demonstrable appetite for change across a number of areas, its ability to afford the level of change desired is open to question. If healthcare services are left behind, the people of New Zealand will be worse off. To ensure that doesn’t happen, the government must embrace the best practices and skills of the private sector, which will be required to meet the coming changes.
Significant challenges remain for the wider delivery of health services in New Zealand, and the new government has very different priorities to its predecessor. Balancing their priorities against the backdrop of significant capital investment requirements and continually rising demand for services will be a major challenge for the government. This is not to second guess the government’s priorities, but to acknowledge that they all come at a cost, and there needs to be a genuine sense check as to whether we can afford those things while still getting the basics right.
If not, it could be the very people who voted Labour in who suffer the most from substandard healthcare delivery. Those on lower incomes are more likely to need the services of the health system. OECD data shows a strong health system improves the wider quality of life in society, and correspondingly, increases productivity in the wider economy.
The government’s promises also include health spending, particularly in health infrastructure and nurses’ pay. Nurses certainly deserve a pay rise, though it is difficult to see where the government will be able to find the money to meet their full expectations. To underline that, Treasury has identified $14 billion dollars’ worth of infrastructure upgrades that need to be made, but as Health Minister David Clark admitted recently on Q+A, so far only $10 billion has been earmarked.
Much has been made of the mould in the walls at Middlemore Hospital. Much of our public health infrastructure needs a major upgrade in the next 10 years, not just at Middlemore Hospital. The magnitude of the complexities and risks around health infrastructure means that governments could easily take on more risk than they can handle, if they aren’t careful.
Partnerships with the private sector, where there is skill, expertise, and importantly capital, could accelerate the process of rebuilding and repairing the network of health infrastructure across New Zealand. Hospitals aren’t currently being considered as candidates for public-private partnerships, which is acceptable so long as the government can put aside sufficient financial resources to deliver both infrastructure and services, while also putting aside sufficient capital reserves for the future. But that will require compromises.
Service delivery is another area that could benefit from private sector expertise; there have been proven successes in the areas of cardiac services and orthopaedic surgery in the Auckland region where private expertise has been used. To not consider using PPPs, even in targeted areas, would indicate a preference for ideology over outcome, so one would hope the government would at least give the option due consideration.
Successful public private partnerships are fundamentally more about improving outcomes and managing risk, than saving money, though that can be a benefit as well. Health is a sector in which huge changes are coming. Advancing technologies, an ageing population, and ageing infrastructure, all present both challenges and opportunities if the government is ready to look to the future. There is even new thinking around where health services are delivered. In the future, and increasing number of services will be delivered away from the traditional hospital setting. This could be a further driver for re-thinking the nature of capital investment needed.
Even at a governance level, the Health Minister should be directing District Health Boards to apply private sector practices. There have long been perceptions that DHBs are overly influenced by political appointments rather than appointing the best people and practices to drive efficiency in what are very large, and very complex businesses. They have fundamental commercial imperatives, in that every dollar must be accounted for. There must correspondingly be more rigorous oversight and accountability around performance – the country can’t afford any more debacles like the Waikato DHB’s failed SmartHealth app, which has cost the organisation millions without any tangible benefits.
The government must be future focused, as the health needs of today will not be those of twenty years from now. The significant and expensive capacity building and innovation needed must begin soon, if New Zealand’s health system is going to keep up with international standards. Embracing the best of the private sector will ensure that the people who need a strong public health system the most don’t get left behind.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Pam Newlove
Partner, Business Advisory Services
Grant Thornton New Zealand
T +64 9 922 1279
E pam.newlove@nz.gt.com