NZX today confirmed that Andrew Harmos assumes the role of Chair of the NZX Board, effective immediately.
Harmos is one of the founding partners of Harmos Horton Lusk, an Auckland-based specialist corporate legal advisory firm. He specialises in takeover advice and structuring, securities offerings, company and asset acquisitions and disposals, and strategic and board corporate and legal advice.
As an NZX Director since 2002, Harmos has helped to steer NZX through a period of rapid and responsive change that has seen the company strengthen the regulatory and technology infrastructure of New Zealand's capital markets, and begin to carve a footprint in international markets.
He views the key economic challenges for New Zealand as:
- Cementing our place in the world as an influential economic force in spite of scale
- Ensuring the savings and investment environment is optimal for maximum New Zealand investor participation
- Ensuring New Zealand has a vision, and a plan against which policy, opportunity and decision making can be benchmarked.
“Strong capital markets, complemented by strong technological, regulatory and tax infrastructure and the availability of a range of investment tools, are fundamental to the economic wellbeing of this country.
“NZX forms the core of our markets and sees its role as participating in the drive to ensure New Zealand enhances its competitiveness - and ultimately its relevance - in the global economy,” he said.
Harmos considers that NZX holds many of the keys to ensuring a strong domestic environment exists for companies to be able to source capital and grow from a base here, with New Zealand based expertise and talent.
“To do this effectively we need to ensure our investment structures, policy settings, capital markets infrastructure and people are, and remain, world class,” he said.
Harmos replaces outgoing Chair Simon Allen.
Profile : Andrew Harmos
Harmos was a partner at Russell McVeagh for 16 years before establishing the specialist corporate legal advisory and transactional firm of Harmos Horton Lusk in 2002. Since its establishment, HHL has been involved in a number of the most complex and challenging New Zealand mergers and acquisition transactions, representing both international based and domestic acquirers and target boards across the spectrum of New Zealand business. The firm has been engaged in NZX listed debt and equity offerings and other non-listed securities structuring and issuance, provides high level strategic and board advice and assisted clients before Takeovers Panel and Securities Commission hearings.
Harmos is a Director of Westfield New Zealand Group and Elevation Capital Management Limited. He is an enthusiastic supporter of New Zealand art.
