KEY POINTS:
Blue Chip investors who bought into a luxury waterfront lodge north of Auckland say they are making the best out of a bad situation - and are succeeding.
Twenty-nine investors who bought 35 units at the Gulf Harbour Lodge on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula have collectively taken control of
the business and say they are successfully running the hotel while continuing in their own jobs and businesses.
Annette Rowson of Tauranga who owns a lodge unit said she hoped the story might inspire other Blue Chip investors to realise that something good could come out of the financial disaster.
Rowson's story is being distributed to Blue Chip investors by Greta Norman of Epsom, herself a Blue Chip investor and one of the first people to speak out about people's plight after investing in the property business which has creditor claims of more than $70 million.
Rowson said lodge investors had registered their own company to run the business, become shareholders and hoped to make the properties profitable.
"I will try and give you an overview of our activity to pass on to investors with the intention of giving them some hope," Rowson said.
The lodge was finished in 2003 and run by Swordfish Lodge Management, whose only director was Blue Chip founder Mark Bryers. Units were rented as hotel rooms and investors were paid attractive guaranteed returns until late last year when the cash stopped.
Only recently did investors realise the lodge consistently ran with a 75 per cent vacancy rate, owed Inland Revenue substantial sums and had accounts which were in a mess.
Lodge investors were at a disadvantage to other Blue Chip investors because they did not get rent directly from the tenants or people occupying the lodge units. Instead, occupants paid Swordfish Lodge Management, the business that operated the hotel until a few weeks ago.
Rowson said that just a week before Christmas, investors got demands for unpaid levies from property management business Boutique Body Corporate.
She met Auckland barrister Daniel Grove who works with Paul Dale. Grove filed an application in the High Court at Auckland to put Swordfish into administration.
That gave the investors control over the lodge.
Swordfish Lodge Management will be placed in liquidation by its administrators in the next few weeks, she said.
"The fight is far from over. We have body corporate, GST, valuation, contractual and other issues that we need to see through. There's a long way to go and we've had a lot to deal with."