Marist Holdings (Greenmeadows) Ltd – MHL – is a wholly owned limited liability company of the Society of Mary, a Catholic religious order of priests and brothers.
The Society holds property and investments in trust for its charitable purposes in New Zealand, as it continues its 177-year commitment in this country to education and charitable activities.
The Mission vineyard was first established by the early Marist missionaries who came here from France in the middle of the 19th century, bringing the vines with them, and is established as New Zealand’s oldest wine maker. The funds from the sale of wine during these early years were used to fund their living expenses and their seminary (where young aspirants to the priesthood received training and education).
In more recent years the company (MHL) was formed to hold the operating and investment interest in Mission Estate Winery.
The company holds the same charitable tax status as its shareholder and the full benefits of the non-taxable charitable status are remitted annually to the Society for it to apply to its charitable works.
The company’s dividend policy ensures the repatriation of the equivalent of the full tax benefit.
The same policy also ensures a further ‘after tax’ dividend to the Society and positions the company on a similar footing as other trading competitors subject to exactly the same commercial tensions and dynamics inherent in the wine industry.
However, the New Zealand Government places significant restrictions on both the tax concession and dividend the charitable company pays as both the tax concession and dividend have to be spent in New Zealand.
Non-charitable investors who receive dividends as a result of their investments are able to spend them without such restriction.
The Society of Mary has a long history of educational and community work and it continues to apply its income and assets to works in New Zealand, which include:
- The advancement of education (founding, conducting and staffing of its three large city secondary schools).
- The support and pastoral care of the people of the eleven busy parish areas run throughout New Zealand.
- Annual charitable donations and subsidies to a wide range of charities and community projects around New Zealand of just under one million dollars ($957,600.00 for the current year.)
- The mentoring of young people through the significant deployment on a stipendiary basis of Society of Mary personnel.
- Substantial annual financial donations made to Challenge 2000 in Wellington and Logos in Auckland, reaching many thousands of young people in the course of each year, especially those who are disadvantaged and at-risk.
- Funding a personal development GAP year for up to 10 young people in Wellington.
- Working with Maori in rural and urban New Zealand.
- Assisting people through chaplaincies throughout New Zealand e.g. to the military, the police, prisons and to seafarers, as well as working with local body community and emergency services.
- The advancement of religious and spiritual values in the community, including the formation and professional development of students who are training for the priesthood within the Society of Mary.
In addition to the above, the modest administrative and living expenses of 120 Marist fathers and brothers engaged in the work must be met, including the care of the retired priests and brothers who have given a lifetime of service to the wider New Zealand community.
Marist Holdings Greenmeadows Ltd is 100% New Zealand owned, and through it the shareholder is investing in New Zealand, endeavouring be a good citizen and contributing charitably to the New Zealand community.
The taxation relief given to Marist Holdings Greenmeadows Ltd is what the government allows companies who have a charitable purpose, and both the taxation relief and profit are used for charitable work.
If the taxation relief were removed it would give the shareholder a choice about where it invested its money and how it spent the proceeds from its investments.
Allowing taxation relief to Marist Holdings Greenmeadows Ltd and similar enterprises, the New Zealand Government recognises that charities other than the State help in ways that large government departments surrounded by bureaucracy cannot.
The shareholder has never asked the public for money e.g. a street day appeal, and has no plans to.
All of the above is able to continue and expand as a result of funding from tax relief and the income from investments derived by the Society.
The story of the Society of Mary’s work continues to be found online here.
