CANBERRA: Australia’s New South Wales state said on Wednesday it plans to sell a pension services firm managing retiree accounts worth more than A$100 billion ($72 billion), risking a political backlash which has dogged other recent privatisations.
The announcement of the planned sale of Pillar Administration came two weeks after the NSW government sold an electricity network for A$10.3 billion as it tries to raise funds for infrastructure such as new rail networks.
“Ongoing public ownership of Pillar is not in the interests of NSW taxpayers or Pillar’s clients in this competitive market,” NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian said in a statement.
The pension services unit would be put to the market in a trade sale and expressions of interest would be sought next year, she said. The government did not give a target sale price.
Australian governments are trying to sell about A$100 billion of ports, roads, railways, electricity grids and business units as the economy adjusts to the end of a mining boom that has propped up tax revenue for two decades.
But the sell-off hit headwinds in October when the A$500 million sale of a port in the Northern Territory to Chinese interests drew criticism from opposition politicians and U.S. government representatives about the security implications of selling strategic assets offshore.
The backlash prompted a Senate inquiry into offshore asset sales, which reports in February. Sydney-based Pillar sells pension fund member administration services, website services and technical support to a host of state, Commonwealth and private businesses.
