Hawkins calls in liquidators for Cynotech

Allan Hawkins. Photo / Dean Purcell

The High Court has appointed interim liquidators to Allan Hawkins' Cynotech Holdings.

In an announcement to the NZAX, the finance firm said Peri Finnigan and Tony Maginness are now liquidators of the company, following an application from Hawkins to the court last week.

Earlier this month, Hawkins said Cynotech Holdings' major shareholder, Budget Loans Group, and others were no longer willing to provide funding support for the company's corporate overhead and infrastructure costs.

Budget Loans, whose shares are controlled by interests linked to Hawkins' family, holds 77.5 per cent of Cynotech Holdings.

"The provision of funding support by the [Budget Loans Group] parties and the group's major lenders and depositors has been a significant factor in ensuring the solvency of Cynotech Holdings Limited for the last two years," Hawkins said in an announcement earlier this month.

"As a consequence of the advice received from a number of those parties, the directors of Cynotech Holdings Limited today resolved that the company can no longer continue as it will become insolvent without the provision of ongoing funding from its' major shareholder and others," Hawkins said.

The assets of Cynotech's subsidiaries are being put up for sale and are made up mainly of the loan books bought when National Finance and Western Bay Finance was put into receivership, he said.

According to unaudited results, Cynotech made a loss of $1.36 million for the 12 months' ending March 31.

Hawkins, who headed Equiticorp before its 1989 collapse, was sentenced to six years' jail in 1993 on seven fraud and conspiracy charges on transactions worth $520 million after one of the longest and most expensive trials in New Zealand history.