Michael Fay (banker)

Sir Michael Fay (born 1949) is a New Zealand merchant banker and partner in the merchant bank Fay Richwhite. He was educated at St Peter's College, Auckland, St Patrick's College, Silverstream and Victoria University of Wellington (LL.B - 1972).

He is one of the ten richest men in New Zealand. His personal wealth was largely acquired during the late 1980s and early 1990s, which included the period in which he had a significant role in the structural adjustment of the New Zealand economy undertaken by New Zealand's Fourth Labour Government. He is thought to be worth in excess of NZD 920 million, making him the 10th richest New Zealand citizen in 2017.

Michael Fay and David Richwhite are best known for gaining wealth in a series of loosely regulated privatisation and asset swapping transactions that occurred between 1986 and 1993 - involving their companies European Pacific, Capital Markets and Fay Richwhite and the former state owned operations Bank of New Zealand, Tranz Rail and Telecom New Zealand, and the pension accounts associated to them.

One notable transaction among these actions was their role as advisors to the government on the sale of New Zealand Rail Limited to overseas interests; a deal in which Fay and Richwhite later bought 31.8 per cent of the shares, and were subsequently investigated for insider trading by NZ authorities.

In October 2004 the New Zealand Securities Commission accused Richwhite and Midavia Rail Investments, a company owned by Richwhite and Fay, of insider trading. Richwhite was alleged to have tipped off Midavia to sell $63 million worth of Tranz Rail shares, whilst knowing Tranz Rail faced financial problems undisclosed to the public. In June 2007, Midavia paid $20 million to settle insider trading proceedings relating to Tranz Rail. The commission stated that the payments had been made "without any admission of liability". The settlement is the largest of its kind ever seen in Australasia.

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