following the introduction of the energy companies act in 1992, after consulting with local citizens the tauranga city council transferred the assets of its electricity department to the newly established tauranga electricity ltd. the majority shareholder in the new company was the council owned tauranga civic holdings ltd, which held 5,099,994 shares with the remaining six shares in the company held by the public. in june 1993 tauranga civic holdings ltd took full control. by that year the company had 5,576 customers.