John Berry says he’s proved you can make money from ethical investments. (Photo: Supplied / Treatment: Archi Banal)
It’s worth finding out if your savings are being invested in the right way, says one local provider.
This is an excerpt from our weekly business newsletter Stocktake.
“Yes, yes!” shouts John Berry down the phone. He sounds like he’s just closed a major deal and is pumping his fist in the air, Gordon Gekko style. It’s nothing like that: I’ve just told him I invest most of my kids’ Sharesies money – a grand total of $5 a week – into something called the “Global Water Fund”. Berry started the fund, which invests solely in companies helping solve the worldwide water crisis, in 2010, and it’s still going strong. “It’s awesome your kids are in there,” he says, delighted.
Back then, starting a fund dedicated to doing good things for the planet was a tough sell. “When we talked about the water crisis, water distribution, water purity, access to water … people thought we were a bit bonkers,” says Berry. With no Sharesies around back then, he was reliant on financial advisers to help sell his fund’s ambitions to investors. They weren’t keen. “They’d say, ‘I’ve got one nutcase greenie client … I’m not going to show it to anyone because it’s just so out there.’”
Berry got a similar reaction when he and co-founder Paul Brownsey launched Pathfinder’s KiwiSaver fund in 2019. Like Global Water, the idea was to provide a KiwiSaver platform for ethically-minded investors, those concerned about the environment and climate change. That meant investing only in companies doing good things, and banning any businesses profiting from arms manufacturing, animal testing, tobacco, fossil fuels or contributing to climate change.
Once again, Berry faced pushback. “The initial reaction was, ‘You can’t make money and be ethical,’” he says. When Covid-19 hit, and markets plunged around the world, it seemed even more risky. As Brownsey puts it: “Our industry has battled the far-reaching effects of the pandemic, historically low interest rates, the worst six-month period for bonds in history, high inflation and technical recessions in some major economies, just for starters.”
Right now, Berry and Brownsey can afford to laugh at those early doubters. According to Morningstar data released in July, Pathfinder earned its 6,000 investors some of the biggest returns going – more than 11%, with the rest averaging around 5% – over the past three years. It proves their theory, that ethical investing can also make money, has paid off. “Now we have data to validate that you can make money and feel good about making money,” says Berry.
More people are waking up to environmental concerns and how investing can help point the way forward, Berry says. Pathfinder investigates the companies it invests in, and constantly reappraises them. Yes, it’s stopped investing in companies if anything surfaces that comprises those ethical values. “We’re trying to find leaders within their industry or just worldwide leaders that are driving change and are implementing best practice for their business,” says Berry. “I still want to make as much money as I can in a way that not only doesn’t harm the planet but benefits the planet and communities.”
Other KiwiSaver providers may exclude troubling industries, but Berry believes that’s not good enough. “My belief is, if you want to change the world, it will take a long time by avoiding things. It’s a really slow way,” he says. “We look at what the megatrends are that going to shape the world over the next decade and beyond, like renewable energy, energy efficiency and water. We want to over-invest in those things.”
Berry’s not necessarily trying to get people to switch their KiwiSaver providers by speaking out. He’s just trying to raise awareness, and educate those who maybe don’t know exactly where their weekly KiwiSaver payments are going. Many, he says, don’t know how to check their KiwiSaver accounts, and don’t know who they’re with or even how much money they have invested. It’s worth finding out, he says, and once you’ve done that, you can check where that money’s going by using the Mindful Money service, which rates providers’ ethical status.
“A lot of people get a surprise,” says Berry. “There’s more money in there than they think … but it’s a default fund which in the past has been the conservative fund. They’ve sat there for years and years.” I also got a surprise: my fund was investing in companies involved in tobacco and animal testing. I’m correcting that immediately, and Berry says it’s easier than many people think. “You just need your IRD number and your passport. You don’t even need to know who your KiwiSaver’s with,” says Berry. “It is actually unbelievably simple. It’s literally two minutes.”
An Auckland festival in June that received public money to help rejuvenate the local music industry has left artists hassling its organiser for money owed, with some still waiting to be paid.
On the weekend of New Zealand’s first Matariki public holiday in June this year, Vā, a three-day free festival, took place on Karangahape Road in Auckland. Organised by Tāmaki Dance Revue – an entertainment company registered by promoter Keegan Fepulea’i who is also a DJ and the editor of Post Mag – it brought together a fleet of 19 musicians and bands, dotted across six different venues. It was pitched as a celebration of urban identity and community.
Six months earlier, the festival received $115,000 in funding from the Local Activation Fund. The contestable fund of $10m was administered by Auckland Unlimited on behalf of the government, to support summer programming for business associations, mana whenua, community groups, cultural organisations and event organisers.
Among the numerous negative effects of the pandemic, many were felt bitterly by the arts and events sectors. The primary aim of the Local Activation Fund was to support the cultural and economic reactivation of town centres that had been affected by Covid-19.
“I loved the write-up of Vā,” says Rebekah Bristow (Ngāpuhi), community manager at Neck of the Woods, one of the venues that hosted Vā festival. “It was at Matariki, and he [Fepulea’i] was talking about the meaning of Vā and community spaces.”
“He’s got great taste,” Bristow says. “So it was a really good lineup.”
But what had the potential to be, in Bristow’s view, “such a good thing for the community, for artists, venues, people who like to come out to events, tech crews, everyone that’s really struggling, as an opportunity to get everyone out together, and to get everyone paid really well”, quickly became an ordeal. An ordeal that others had experienced before in dealings with Fepulea’i.
The poster for Vā festival. (Image: Facebook)
Despite a generous level of financial backing for a festival of its size, Vā was underwhelming for Bristow. “The performances were great, but to be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the production values of the festival given we knew how much money he’d been given,” she says. She describes how, throughout the event, there was a noticeable lack of production value and staff on the ground. She believes the event could have cost as little as $30,000 to put on – meaning a potential profit of around $85,000 for the organisers. This estimate was echoed by two other sources The Spinoff spoke to.
In an email to The Spinoff, Fepulea’i said that excluding the $42,000 he paid himself “for the six months” of work, $34,127 plus GST was spent on putting on Vā. “I used the rest to cover the cashflow issues of the business,” he wrote. Fepulea’i said he is “working through recovering the funds that are owed to me for work,” and other funds which he said have been stolen.
Six weeks after the event, Bristow discovered that Neck of the Woods and its sound engineer still hadn’t been paid their hire fee. “When I found that out I went, ‘oh no’,” she says. She understands that sometimes bill payments can be delayed in the arts industry. But knowing that all the funding for the festival had already been paid to Fepulea’i, who then should have been able to pay others, made her suspicious. Bristow was also aware of a pattern of similar instances with Fepulea’i spanning at least 10 years.
She reached out to friends and artists who had also been booked for the festival. While some had been paid, Bristow learned that many had only been paid in instalments, or received nothing at all.
After frequent demands for payment, Neck of the Woods eventually received its fee from Fepulea’i. But, three months later, others remain unpaid.
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Musician Stefan Neville has been in the music industry for three decades. He drums for the Coolies, who were asked to play on the second night of the festival and had agreed on a fee of $2000.
The night before their slot at Vā they played at another event and, Neville says, “when we were leaving we walked past this guy, and a friend of ours who was with us said ‘Do you know that guy? Don’t ever work with him.’”
It was Fepulea’i. “We didn’t know him, so the next night we met him we were, like ‘that’s the guy!’”
After chasing him for payment over a span of two months, the band received an email two weeks ago with another excuse from Fepulea’i, “a story about someone ripping him off and killing themselves”. Fepulea’i stated in the email that he was still intending to pay, but the band is yet to receive anything. While most other bands have now been at least partially paid, Neville says they “haven’t got a cent”.
The Vā festival was supported by a government-backed fund, and the delays and, at times, complete lack of payment is concerning to those who administer it. In a statement to The Spinoff, Richard Clarke, director of arts, entertainment and events at Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, said: “As part of the standard post-event information supplied to Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, the event organiser stated that all performers and contractors had been paid.
“We have tried to contact the event organiser to seek an explanation regarding complaints, so far without success. We will continue to do so,” Clarke continued. “Any payments to performers were (and continue to be) the responsibility of the event organiser.
“We are very disappointed that this situation has arisen and will continue to monitor feedback and where applicable make any changes necessary to future proof our application process.”
The festival also received funding from the Karangahape Road Business Association. General manager James Holloway says he was initially contacted by Fepulea’i who said he had $15,000 left over from a previous event at Basque Park which he was using for Vā. “We’re all about attracting people to the area so we funded him,” says Holloway, who agreed to put $1,500 toward production so other funds would be able to be used to market the event more widely. It was only a few days ago that Holloway learned of the actual amount the event had been given, and that the Basque Park event, which he assumed had taken place, had never happened.
This was confirmed by Fepulea’i. The proposed Basque Park festival “was the original concept”, he told The Spinoff, but due to Covid-19 settings at the time, “the festival concept could not be delivered”.
“Those of us who had planned events that fell within period where we were in the adjusted Covid settings were asked to produce our events or a variation before July,” he added.
While Vā festival was a free event, ticket holders were given the option to donate to “see the event continue next year”, both online and at the door. According to Fepulea’i, $420.13 was donated.
The festival was free as a condition of the funding, but ticket holders were still asked to make donations.
Musician Warren Duncan was also approached by Fepulea’i about joining the lineup for Vā. He was won over by Fepulea’i’s pitch and they agreed on an appearance fee of $1,500 to split between Duncan and his bass player and drummer.
On the night they played, Duncan recalls the venue being empty when they showed up, but “by the time we were done playing the place was full. I think we did a good job of sort of creating a massive buzz in the environment for the next act.”
After the event, Duncan began following up with Fepulea’i about being paid. Each time, Duncan says the responses would take three or four days. “Sort of just stringing me along and giving some sort of excuse,” he remembers. Duncan says Fepulea’i’s excuses included that he hadn’t been paid by the council. A month after the show, Fepulea’i said the council would only approve a lower fee of $1000. Duncan says he “felt a little weird about it” but agreed and made a new invoice for the new fee.
After a second month of messaging Fepulea’i with no payment, being given what he believes was a fake email address, and his messages going unanswered, Duncan visited the address listed on the companies register on the evening of August 23, without success.
“Every other instance where I’ve done council gigs, they pay you pretty much instantaneously, or definitely well within that seven day period after,” he says, “which I think is a respectable period of time after the gig.”
While on tour in Australia at the beginning of September, Duncan learned that others involved in the festival also hadn’t been paid. On September 4 he went public with his experience with Fepulea’i on Instagram. He says he felt compelled to speak up because “our industry is so small and I’m such an advocate for all of our DJs, musicians, performers – everyone deserves to get paid fairly and to get treated the right way”.
He tagged Tāmaki Dance Revue, Fepulea’i and the council because Fepulea’i “was ducking and diving and telling lies and making up excuses and that’s the thing that sort of aggravated me.”
One of Duncan’s Instagram posts that tagged Fepulea’i, Tāmaki Dance Revue and the council.
Within 10 minutes of posting, he says Fepulea’i contacted him with another reason for the delay. He also says he received close to 100 responses from people sharing similar stories of dealings with Fepulea’i.
Although he’s now been paid, albeit a smaller amount than originally agreed upon, the ordeal has been stressful. “It sucks that it’s only when you really confront him and you publicly address him, that there’s some sort of progress.”
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Saxophonist Ben McNicoll has been in the music industry for more than two decades. He had an almost identical experience to Duncan’s in 2019, when Fepulea’i approached him and his 11-piece band to play at the Matakana Oyster Festival. A fee was agreed on, one much lower than the band would usually play for. They performed on October 6. The gig went as planned, but afterwards “there was basically radio silence,” says McNicoll.
Two days later he began chasing Fepulea’i over Facebook messenger. The Spinoff has seen messages spanning the following months, including week-long gaps in responses and multiple excuses from Fepulea’i, including that he hadn’t been paid by the festival himself.
“For me as a bandleader not to be paid is embarrassing because I have 10 other people who I promised money to,” McNicoll says.
McNicoll inquired with other bands and discovered they weren’t the only band that hadn’t been paid. He also contacted the festival organiser, who said Fepulea’i had in fact been paid up front.
At that point, McNicoll began badgering Fepulea’i on social media. “It was once I started doing that in public that I was paid within a few days,” he says.
On the afternoon of December 21, 2019, after more than two months of continuous pestering, McNicoll received payment – by way of a wad of cash stuffed in a Le Specs sunglasses case left in Fepulea’i’s letterbox.
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In a statement made on Wednesday night, following a series of critical social media posts by others, Fepulea’i acknowledged and apologised for the unpaid bills. In the statement, posted on Tāmaki Dance Revue’s Instagram page, he blamed “cash flow issues”, saying that some “were within my control and many were unforeseen, unintentional and not within my control”.
“I have since engaged with the respective parties and payment plans are in place to rectify the situation,” the post read. Neville, who played with his band at Vā festival, says he has seen the post but is yet to hear from Fepulea’i directly.
Fepulea’i also said in the post that once he’d settled his debts, Tāmaki Dance Revue Ltd would be dissolved. According to the companies register, the company was already dissolved, on August 18.
The apology posted on Tāmaki Dance Revue’s Instagram.
Given Fepulea’i’s history of evasive business dealings in the music community, Bristow felt that Vā could have been an opportunity for him to build back trust within the community. Others spoken to by The Spinoff mentioned that despite their misgivings about his financial acumen, he’s been a significant figure within the local music scene – and in some cases, done a lot of good. “If he’d put on a really good festival and everyone got paid, I would have been like, ‘OK, all right, I can trust you again,’” Bristow says.
But she says a lot of people have been affected by the payments issue and it can’t happen again. “Everyone might get paid in the end, but people are only getting paid because we’re kicking up a fuss about it and that shouldn’t have to happen.”
Despite what happened with Vā, Bristow says the Local Activation Fund has been an invaluable resource during a trying time for the live events and arts communities. “It’s a chance to really give back to the community, artists and suppliers, and to the audience as well by giving them something really special and for free, because everyone’s been struggling.”
She hopes that this experience leads to more transparency within the industry around exploitative payment practices. “You deserve to get paid for your time,” she says. “It’s not just your performance time, but it’s all the work that goes in, all the hours of practising, of buying gear or records, it’s time and it’s work.”
McNicoll understands the vital role that curators of arts, events and music play. But behaviour like Fepulea’i’s “devalues the work of everyone else”, he says.
According to Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, to date, the Local Activation Fund Programme has approved 135 applications with a total investment of $7,395,818. Because of the amount of money given to Vā, McNicoll worries about the potential erosion of trust between funders and members of the music and events industry who are worthy of support. “Beyond the cost to the artists in both time and money, what I worry about is the reputational damage to the whole industry and how it makes getting funding even harder.”
He sees this as a signal that “council needs to employ more people directly plugged into the industry”.
In his email to The Spinoff, Fepulea’i acknowledged that his actions have ripple effects beyond the immediate aftermath of Vā.
“I wholeheartedly accept that as a result of my actions harm has been caused and I’m truly sorry,” he said. “I’ve let many of my friends, colleagues and community down. Many of whom have shown immense amount of support over the past decade. I am owed but more importantly I owe artists and a supplier. My responsibility right now is to rectify this situation and meet obligations agreed to in the payment plan with the affected parties.”
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In his email, Fepulea’i said five artists and one supplier were yet to be paid for their work at Vā, for an amount he says is, “just shy of NZ$8,000”. By the end of the day, “that will be four artists and one supplier,” he wrote. “I have payment plans in place with all of these parties.”
At the time of publication Neville and his band have not been paid for their work at Vā festival.