Treasury has named ANZ New Zealand, ASB, Craigs Investment Partners and Forsyth Barr as the retail syndicate for the Government's initial public offering (IPO) of Mighty River Power shares.

At the same time Treasury has named a retail syndicate panel for the full SOE selldown programme. Along with the firms named to the Mighty River Power retail syndicate, this also includes BNZ, Kiwibank and Westpac.

"Members of the retail syndicate for the Mighty River Power IPO are responsible for marketing the shares to New Zealand retail investors, with an emphasis on helping to achieve the Government's objective of 85-90% New Zealand ownership at the time of the share offer," Treasury says.

"Syndicate members will work with the retail broking arms of the joint lead managers (First NZ Capital, JBWere/Goldman Sachs and Macquarie) for the offer to help New Zealanders understand how the share offer process works and how they can participate. They will have a particular focus on first-time investors."

Treasury says their work will include nationwide public roadshow meetings and presentations, marketing the offer to retail investors in New Zealand, and working to get applications from New Zealanders for the offer. They'll also provide investor education to potential New Zealand investors unfamiliar with direct share investment and the sharemarket.

ANZ (including the National Bank) and ASB's appointment is designed to provide substantial distribution capacity to support the Government's widespread New Zealand ownership goal, Treasury says, given they have more than 500 branches and offices between them and very large customer bases.

Yesterday Prime Minister John Key said the minimum application size for Mighty River Power share parcels will be NZ$1,000. Key also said New Zealanders seeking up to NZ$2,000 worth of shares would not have their offer scaled back, and those who keep their shares for about three years will get a loyalty bonus, being additional shares.

The Government wants to sell down up to 49% of Mighty River Power, Genesis Energy, Meridian Energy and Solid Energy. First off the block is Mighty River, with the sales process planned to kick off before the end of September. The Government also wants to sell down its three-quarter holding in Air New Zealand to no less than 51%.