Trustees Executors and Agency Company

Trustees Executors and Agency Company (TEA, 1879–1983) was the first trustee company formed in Australia. It carried on unexciting business for its first 90 years, before collapsing after an excursion into bad property deals in the early 1980s. The Trustees Executors and Agency Company (Canberra) Ltd ACN 8417089 was renamed on 18/4/2014 to ANZ ILP PTY LTD ACN 8417089 TEA was established by William Templeton in 1878 when he perceived a need for wealthy or moderately wealthy people to have a good executor after their death. The company's formation required a special act of parliament because such matters had previously only been handled by individuals. The company floated in 1879 with tight restrictions on the capital investments it could make and on how many shares any one person could control. Those shareholding limits had the effect of making the board and management largely self-perpetuating, since so many shareholders would have to act together to effect change. In the 1970s the labour-intensive nature of the business was putting profits under pressure and TEA came up with the idea of offering a money market deposit service for clients, on which it would make a margin. If they actively solicited funds they would have had to prepare a costly prospectus, so the service was just quietly hinted at, letting clients request it.