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Home / Business / Companies / Banking and finance

Failure of finance companies nears $4.5b

NZPA
30 Jul, 2008 07:27 AM5 mins to read

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KEY POINTS:

The amount of investor funds affected by finance companies, funds and mortgage trusts that have collapsed or defaulted in just over two years now stands at about $4.5 billion.

The following is the chronology of collapses and defaults:

* May 2006: National Finance 2000 went into receivership, holding
deposits of $25.5m on behalf of 2026 investors, some of which has been repaid.

* June 2006: Provincial Finance placed in receivership with debenture holders owed $300m, some of which had been returned to them.

* August 2006: Tauranga-based Western Bay, owing more than $48m to investors, went into receivership. Debenture holders have recovered of portion of their money.

* July 2007: Specialist property financier Bridgecorp went into receivership, after defaulting on repayments of some term investments due to investors - owing about $500m to 18,000 investors. Executive director Rod Petricevic is facing criminal charges.

* August 2007: Nathans Finance went into receivership, owing $166m to around 6000 investors. Nathans was a wholly owned subsidiary of listed vending technology company VTL Group which announced it was insolvent due to a Companies Office investigation of Nathans.

* August 2007: Property Finance Securities, with debentures of over $80m and loans of over $630m, went into receivership. It moved out of receivership in February 2008 after restructuring.

* August 2007: Five Star Consumer Finance collapsed, with receivers saying big loans in its $51m lending book were "outside normal lending practices". Its prospectus showed it owed $57.6m at March 31, 2006, in various dated debentures.

* September 2007: LDC Finance Ltd trustee Perpetual Trust called in receivers after a run on its funds. Its 995 depositors and debenture holders were owed $19.3m.

* September 2007: Nelson-based car finance firm Finance and Investments was placed in receivership, owing 370 investors $16m. Finance and Investments received funding from LDC.

* October 2007: BDO Spicers were appointed receivers to Auckland-based financier Clegg and Co Finance. Clegg had around $15m of 500 investors' funds in debentures. Covenant Trustees said Clegg's trust deed had been breached to a "significant extent".

* October 2007: Auckland-based Beneficial Finance secured agreement from debenture holders for a moratorium on debenture payments.

* October 2007: Geneva Finance stopped taking deposits and put a moratorium on repaying debentures. It owed about 3000 creditors over $138m.

* November 2007: Capital+Merchant Investments was placed in receivership, owing about $190m to 7000 investors.

* December, 2007: Numeria Finance went into receivership with 480 debenture holders owed $6.7m.

* February 2008: MFS Pacific Finance, now OPI Pacific Finance, a unit of publicly listed MFS New Zealand, announced it had defaulted on loan repayments after its Queensland-based parent, MFS Ltd now Octaviar, said it would not provide further support. MFS Pacific has $335m invested by 12,000 New Zealanders.

* February 2008: MFS Boston, indirectly owned by Octavia, called for a stay in redemptions from its $38.5m investors' funds until November 2009.

March, 2008 - Two funds (a diversified yield fund and regular income fund) run by the NZ arm of Dutch financial group ING suspended withdrawals for 8000 investors who originally put in $520m. The funds were exposed to the US subprime market.

* April 2008: Lombard Finance and Investments, a wholly owned subsidiary of publicly listed Lombard Group, was placed in receivership. Lombard was seeking a moratorium on its loans - $111m owed to debenture holders and $16m to note holders.

* April 2008: New Plymouth-based Kiwi Finance Ltd was placed in receivership, owing $2 million to 41 debenture holders.

April 2008: Insurance and investment firm Tower closed its $242m first mortgage fund affecting 5000 investors, because property loans were falling into arrears.

* May 2008: Fairview New Zealand (FNZ), formerly Cymbis New Zealand, was placed in receivership, together with related company FP Holdings. FNZ, part of Capital+Merchant which collapsed in November, owes $6.9m to 797 stockholders.

* May 2008: Auckland-based property financier Belgrave Finance called in receivers, owing over $20m to around 1000 debenture investors.

* June 2008: Dominion Finance Holdings (DFH) said it was mulling a moratorium on debenture repayments due to liquidity worries over subsidiaries, Dominion Finance Group and North South Finance. At March 31, debenture holders were owed $276m. DFH later defaulted when it suspended payment of interest on debenture stock and capital notes.

* June 2008: St Laurence defaulted to its 9000 debenture holders, owed around $240 million. It said investors would only get repaid in instalments although still receive interest payments.

* June 2008: Dorchester Pacific said its finance arm Dorchester Finance, which owes debenture holders $168m, wanted to default on maturing debentures but would continue making interest payments.

* July 22 2008: Canterbury Mortgage Trust said it had frozen 5000 investors' funds worth $250 million.

* July 23 2008: New Zealand's third largest finance group Hanover Finance suspended repayment of capital and interest from $554m of debentures and bonds - some invested in subsidiaries United Finance and Hanover Capital.

* July 30 2008: New Zealand Guardian Trust has suspended new investments and withdrawals in one its funds, the Guardian Mortgage Fund due to liquidity problems. The fund established in May 1986 owes $249m million to 3700 investors.

- NZPA

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