PFG hit the headlines earlier in the year when it bought stakes in the Canterbury Building Society and Loan and Building Society. However, last week those shares were sold to Auckland-based Southern Cross Building Society.
"It is clear any opportunities between firms could take some time to deliver and therefore after a strategic review of the Company's assets the Board decided that its holdings in CBS and LBS were not core to its main activities and therefore offered the share parcels into the market in a competitive bid process," PFG chairman Barney Sundstrum says.
Southern Cross currently owns 13% of CBS and 9% in LBS. Southern Cross managing director Bob Smith says the shares are a strategic holding for his company.
He expects regulatory changes will create "some consolidation in the building society sector."
"Indeed we understand that both CBS and LBS are already considering a merger of the two Ashburton-based building societies and, as new shareholder in both societies, we support their moves to do so".
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