150 Years of Trust
As the country’s longest-serving trustee services organisation, Public Trust is proud of our heritage of being trusted by New Zealanders since 1873.
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Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua - I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past
As the country’s longest-serving trustee services organisation, Public Trust is proud of our heritage of being trusted by New Zealanders since 1873. As a Crown-owned entity with a 150 years of social and commercial impact in Aotearoa New Zealand, we have a responsibility to capture and share our history as part of our haepapa kaitiakitanga (guardianship obligation).
Our sense of history has always been with us.
"As we mark 150 years of advocating for New Zealanders, we can reflect with pride on the organisation Public Trust is today and look with optimism towards the organisation we aspire to be."
– Ian Fitzgerald Chair
For our golden jubilee in 1923, a nationwide press campaign called The Will and the Way highlighted 50 reasons – one for each year of our existence – why Public Trust was the best provider of trustee services.
In 1973, Public Trust celebrated our centennial by commissioning a history published as A Century of Trust, and reprinted a decade ago, colloquially known within Public Trust as the 'red book'.
For our 150-year anniversary we want to tell our story since 1973 as well as our full 150-year history through a series of stories of our people and places, our purpose and progress in a way that is compelling, relevant and accessible. These stories are our history, and they help us shape our future.
Public Trust looks forward to a future of helping Kiwi families build and protect their legacies, and to growing and supporting organisations and communities throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.
These stories are our history, and they help us shape our future.
"During our 150-year anniversary we will be taking time to reflect on our legacy of advocacy for all New Zealanders. We will also be telling the story of who we aspire to be as we build the Public Trust of the future. Our story in the immediate future will be of the transformation that will help us unlock greater value for the organisation, which will in turn set us up to continue to empower all New Zealanders to build and protect their legacies for the next 150 years."
– Glenys Talivai Chief Executive
