Troubled property developer wound up owing at least $4 million

Parts of Eco-Smart Homes – which developed residential property across Auckland - have gone into liquidation, with director Ritesh Mani telling the Herald he has stopped trading. Photo / Alex Burton

An Auckland property developer has ceased trading, with the company’s director saying he has left the real estate sector after five companies in his group entered liquidation.

The Eco-Smart group, directed by Ritesh Mani, has over the past few years attracted complaints in the press from clients, and in the courts from subcontractors.

In August, Inland Revenue appointed liquidators to Manifest Group and Prime Assets #1. Both companies have Mani as their sole director and include Eco-Smart links in filings.

The Official Assignee has since completed both administrations, recording $88,130 was owed in unpaid taxes with no recoveries generated.

In December, three more companies in the group, also directed by Mani, had liquidators appointed. ASCCN 21, NKSW and ECTCH have previously been named Eco-Smart Group, Eco-Smart Homes Northwest and Eco-Smart Homes Auckland.

The former two companies were liquidated by Mani, who appointed Rodgers Reidy, shortly after ECTCH was tipped into administration by subcontractor Dennis & Leo Brady Construction, which was owed $938,762.

Liquidator reports for all three companies record at least $4 million in owing and negligible or unknown assets, although administrators signal their initial accounting is incomplete.

The Registrar of Companies has also signalled it intends to remove three other companies in the group from the register: Wealth Creation Partners, NZ First Home, and Eco-Smart Residential West Auckland.

Mani, contacted by the Herald, declined to directly answer questions about the collapse of Eco-Smart and instead directed communications be managed by a public-relations firm.

Daniel Paul, director of Wellington-based The PR Company, initially insisted his client would need a week to answer questions as “there [are] a big amount of very complex issues” but later agreed to provide a written statement the following morning.

The statement attributed the failure to subcontractors and the declining Auckland property market.

“We have worked with hundreds of happy homeowners over the years, but the issues noted above meant not everyone had a great experience. We did our best to complete all the projects and get everyone into their homes before the liquidation,” the statement said.

“It was a difficult decision made to then close the company.”

Parts of Eco-Smart Homes, who developed residential property across Auckland - including this strip of townhouses in Helensville, have gone into liquidation with director Ritesh Mani telling the Herald he has stopped trading. NZME Photograph by Alex Burton

Mani has a chequered commercial past.

In 2002, he was bankrupted while working as a “driver/sales representative”.

In 2014 he was bankrupted again, with his occupation listed as “real estate agent”.

In 2015, he was working for his family-owned company Tribeca Homes as its “number-one sales executive” when the company dishonoured 44 contracts with customers who had paid deposits for home and land packages.

Tribeca later went into liquidation owing creditors $4.8m, with about half being unpaid taxes. A Herald investigation into Tribeca found Mani – who was then prohibited from managing or directing a company due to bankruptcy restrictions – had flown Tribeca salespeople to Australia to attend a pep talk by Jordan Belfort, the convicted fraudster known for his memoir The Wolf of Wall Street.

Liquidators later pursued claims against a Mani family trust for $133,023. The Registrar of Companies later imposed a three-and-a-half-year banning order against Mani, but this order was quashed on appeal, with a judge ruling the Companies Office had provided insufficient evidence detailing Mani’s involvement in mismanagement at Tribeca.

Mani said in his PR statement he was not concerned the collapse of Eco-Smart might expose him to a third bankruptcy.

“We are doing our best to work through this as positively as possible for all concerned.”

Leo Brady, of creditors Dennis & Leo Brady Construction, welcomed the end of Eco-Smart.

“There were a whole heap of houses and at the end, he couldn’t pay. I think that’s the way he [Mani] operates.”

Brady said he had lost money with earlier Mani ventures – “I’ve known him since the Tribeca days” – and when he started work he did not know Mani was behind Eco-Smart.

He said he didn’t want to give too much more attention to Mani. “I don’t want to die of stress worrying about him. But surely he can’t go into any business again – maybe just the workforce? That’s not how the world works.”

Brady said weathering the loss of nearly a million dollars was difficult for his company of nearly two-dozen employees, but he was coping.

“Arse-up, head-down is the only way to do with it. And some very accommodating companies I’m still dealing with, and paying them off.”

Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.