Nosh chain owes creditors $2.3m

Former Nosh Food Market store in Mt Eden not open for business. Picture / Jason Oxenham.

Receivers were appointed to failed grocery chain Nosh by one of the people who had bought it only five months earlier.

The chain was tipped into receivership in July after the stores closed their doors for a relaunch that never eventuated.

The first report from receivers Damien Grant and Steven Khov was posted on the Companies Office this evening and says that Nosh Group's director Andrew Guy Phillips was the person who called them in.

Sydney-based Phillips was the sole director and shareholder of the company that bought the unprofitable chain in February for $4m from NZX-listed Veritas.

At the time he said he had the backing of a number of wealthy Kiwis.

Only one of these backers was revealed through changes to the Companies Office.

He was Jonathan Denize, an Auckland man who has been declared bankrupt twice.

Phillips is claiming $571,000 from Nosh Group and another company in receivership associated with the chain while unsecured creditors are claiming about $2.3 million.

Grant and Khov say they have sold the assets of the former Matakana and Glen Innes stores and are attempting to sell those of other stores.