Sympathy in short supply from Hanover investor

George Craddock. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Burned Hanover Finance investor George Craddock will be working on Christmas Day - a decision the 58-year-old says he has no control over.

The Waipu labourer lost $450,000 to the failed company Mr Hotchin co-founded, which froze $554 million owed to 16,500 investors in 2008.

Yesterday, while Mr Hotchin's lawyers withdrew a bid to increase a Securities Commission allowance limit of $1000 a week by $6000, Mr Craddock was planning how he would stretch his income to meet mounting medical bills.

After he pays his mortgage, Mr Craddock has a $300 budget to pay for food, fuel, and costs associated with carpal tunnel syndrome which ACC won't cover.

Mr Craddock said he was fortunate to get a mortgage after the 2008 Hanover collapse. But he won't pay it off until he's 80.

"I'll be dead before then. It's hard starting from scratch when you're in your mid 50s. You can't push your body to do the things you did in your 30s."

He has nothing but contempt for Mr Hotchin who took $91 million in dividends with co-founder Eric Watson in the years before the collapse.

"You try and put it behind you and then this happens and all of the old wounds are opened again.

"For the first time in my life I ended up on the dole. I spent six weeks on it, I couldn't work at that time because I was ill. The maximum I could get from government support was $220. So do I think $1000 is enough to live on? I sure do. That's about four times the amount I was on.

"One of the things that's hard is that those guys are still living the high life, they still have assets that they purchased with the money we invested."

Mr Craddock said he knew there was some public sentiment that investors were money-grubbers who should have known the risks.

"A lot of people say the people that put their money in Hanover Finance, 'they were greedy'. That certainly wasn't the case for me.

"There were other finance companies that were offering much higher rates, at the time I felt they were about the middle of the pack."

Mr Craddock's investment was saved over a lifetime working as a mechanical engineer and from his time spent working at The Warehouse.

GEORGE CRADDOCK

Lives: Waipu, Northland.

Income: $300 a week after mortgage payment.

Car: 10-year-old Toyota Prado.

MARK HOTCHIN

Income: Unclear. Frozen New Zealand assets. $1000 a week approved from Securities Commission.

Cars: $200,000 Mercedes and a $90,000 Porsche languishing in New Zealand after a judge refused permission for the vehicles to be transported to Australia.

Lives: Three-storey mansion at Mermaid Beach, Gold Coast.