North Island Weather Events Loan Guarantee Scheme

We are participating in the North Island Weather Events Loan Guarantee Scheme. 

Under the scheme, the Government will guarantee 80% of each loan in the scheme.

It is available to businesses that have operations located in the following areas that have been significantly negatively impacted as a result of the North Island weather events:

• Northland
• Auckland
• Waikato 
• Bay of Plenty
• Tairāwhiti
• Hawke's Bay
• Tararua
• Wairarapa

The North Island weather events are the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle.

You may be eligible to apply for a loan under the scheme if:

• You are a New Zealand based business that is located (in whole or in part) in one of the weather event impacted regions (listed above)
• You will use the loan to manage the impact of the North Island weather events (including by refinancing any of your existing debt, but excluding any debt to a related party)
• You have experienced, or expect to experience, a significant negative impact on your (or your Guaranteeing Group’s) business and financial condition due to the North Island weather events
• You are not a local authority, a council-controlled organisation or a council organisation
• You don’t have a loan under the scheme with another lender (unless you are intending to refinance that loan with a loan under the scheme from us)
• You are not involved in excluded activities—
• You won’t use the loan for excluded purposes—.

As a lender in the scheme, we will decide whether your business and financial condition has experienced, or is expected to experience, a ‘significant negative impact’ taking into account all information we consider appropriate.

While we will make the final decision, when we assess the impact of the weather events on your business and financial condition, our focus will include whether there has been:

• A significant or material decrease in cashflow, present or forecast
• A significant or material decrease in asset value
• Significant or material damage to assets or infrastructure where the resulting loss (or cost of reinstatement or replacement) is not covered by insurance
• A significant or material increase in operating costs beyond general inflation (for example, significant increases in transport costs in and out of the weather affected regions).

As general guidance only, a significant negative impact may exist if you expect, in either of the two financial years following the relevant weather event, when compared to the average of your previous three financial years, you will experience any of the following:

• A 20% reduction in stocking (e.g. stock units) or production (e.g. fruit-trays or tonnes harvested or kgs of milk solids)
• A 20% reduction in gross income (net of stock purchases)
• A 20% reduction in cashflow (net of any direct Government funding received by the customer)
• A 20% increase in operating costs beyond general inflation (for example significant increases in transport costs in and out of the weather affected regions).

These are guidelines only. There may be other circumstances that we consider have had, or are expected to have, a significant negative impact on your business and financial condition. 

Excluded activities include any of the following:

• Manufacturing or testing cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines, or nuclear explosive devices 
• Manufacture of tobacco
• Processing of whale meat
• Manufacture or distribution of recreational cannabis
• Manufacture of civilian automatic and semi-automatic firearms, magazines or parts
• Any activity which is illegal in New Zealand
• Any other activity that the Crown tells us has become an excluded activity—.

Excluded purposes include any of the following: 

• Funding dividends to be distributed outside your Guaranteeing Group
• Funding on-lending outside your Guaranteeing Group
• Funding one or more Excluded Activities
• Refinancing any existing debt to a related party.

Guaranteeing Group means you and each person that has guaranteed your obligations to us.