Auckland (22 September 2009) - The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation today announced the appointment of State Street Global Advisors to manage a large-cap passive equities mandate.

The passive mandate tracks the MSCI large-cap equity index, meaning that it produces MSCI large-cap index-like returns. This provides cost-effective market exposure.

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For more information please contact:  
Paul Gregory, Head of Communications [email protected], 09 308 2041, 021 274 9994

About State Street Global Advisors:
State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) is based in Boston in the United States and is one of the industry's largest institutional asset managers. It is the investment management arm of State Street Bank and Trust Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of State Street Corporation, a leading provider of financial services to institutional investors. Today SSgA has US$1.6 trillion of assets under management for more than 2700 institutional clients.

About the New Zealand Superannuation Fund:
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund, which commenced investing at the end of September 2003, is designed to reduce the tax burden on future New Zealand taxpayers of the cost of New Zealand superannuation. An ageing population means the cost of providing New Zealand superannuation is expected to double over the next 50 years. To prepare for this, the Government has made contributions to the Fund while the cost of superannuation is relatively low. The Fund will invest the money on a prudent but commercial basis and the Government will begin to make withdrawals from 2031, when the cost of superannuation has increased. As at 31 May 2009 the value of the Fund was NZ$13.1 billion. For more information visit www.nzsuperfund.co.nz