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Every little bit helps - that hole won't fill itself. Photo / Thinkstock

Spent the early afternoon worrying about the $12.6 billion "debt hole" and staying out of the rain.

Thought I could help out by pledging a proportion of my annual income - say up to a maximum of 30 per cent - to the government. I challenge every New Zealander to match or better my pledge. We could fill this debt hole with a Telethon...

By late afternoon the storm, and reality, had set in and to ease the gloomy mood I read the inaugural '2010 Investment Statement of the Government of New Zealand'.

The stated intention of the document is "to introduce, explain and discuss the nature and management of the most material assets and liabilities held on the Crown's balance sheet" - and it does that quite well.

"Effective management of Crown assets, and making the best future investment decisions, is important if we are to realise our economic goals and deliver better public services," Bill English says in the introduction.

There's plenty of policy-signaling in here too, softening us up for the sale of state-owned enterprises, state houses and the like.

Of more interest to me, however, was confirmation of a long-standing industry rumour that the government was considering bringing all five of its investment funds (called Crown Financial Institutions - or CFIs) under a single management structure.

"At present the five CFIs are separate entities. A single fund manager across CFIs might increase efficiency and overall performance, and enable better aggregate risk management across the financial portfolio," the Investment Statement says on page 69.

Collectively, the five CFIs - the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS), the Government Superannuation Fund, the National Provident Fund, the Accident Compensation Commission fund and the Earthquake Commission disaster fund - look after about $40 billion of assets so pooling the management could bring about significant economies of scale.

In practice, this would be tough to implement given each of the CFIs has differing investment objectives as well as entrenched cultures.

The EQC, for example, is in the middle of selling down its international equity portfolio to help fund costs of $1.5 billion incurred by the Christchurch earthquake.

Meanwhile, the $17.6 billion NZS has been hiring of late with its latest appointment, Keith Poore former head of asset allocation at AXA Global Investors, bringing staff levels to about 70.

Despite this, the NZS told the government in November its running costs had dropped from over 60 basis points (as measured against funds under management) to about 52 basis points.

The $13 billion ACC fund is doing it meaner with its running costs down to about 30 basis points. The ACC is trying to trim that even further, launching a trial recently to manage international equities in-house rather than paying expensive offshore fund managers to do the job.

Every little bit helps, that debt hole won't fill itself.