Waikato–Tainui was the first iwi to reach a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the Crown for injustices that went back to the wars and land confiscations (raupatu) of the 1860s. The Deed of Settlement included cash and land valued at a total of $170 million.
The agreement was a major landmark in New Zealand’s developing treaty settlements process. As historian Richard Hill explained in his book Maori and the state (2009):
The settlement was for some $150 million more than the government had been prepared to offer less than five years before. A mere six years before the signing, in fact, there were no state plans to supersede the 1946 agreement. Matters had, certainly in international terms, moved fast.
The agreement also included a formal apology from the Crown. Queen Elizabeth II signed the Act that made the agreement law during a state visit later in 1995. Tainui established a commercial framework to manage its tribal assets and, by 2014, Tainui Group Holdings and Waikato–Tainui Fisheries had assets of over $1 billion.