“The size of the pool is huge,” Stubbs said.
“And there’s something very special about the money. You talk about politics but this the most depoliticised pool of money, because it belongs to everybody.”
Simplicity and other KiwiSaver schemes already invest in the Local Government Funding Agency (LGFA), the pool of cheap debt for various local bodies.
But that also includes major investment from overseas funds, and Stubbs believes there’s a case for direct investment for Kiwis, by Kiwis.
“I’m going to invest in water systems all over the world, it doesn’t have to be here [Wellington], but it seems to me kind of silly that we wouldn’t invest in our own backyard.