Waiwera Water NZ has $9.9m estimated debts, uncertain future for creditors

It remains unclear how much creditors will get back. Photo / Getty Images

Manufacturer Waiwera Water New Zealand has estimated debts of $9.9 million but how much it will pay creditors remains unknown, according to a report out this month.

Liquidators Tony Maginness and Jared Booth of Baker Tilly Staples Rodway in Auckland have produced their first report on the company which went into liquidation on May 17.

But by far the largest single amount in the estimated $9.9m claims, the liquidators noted, was a "related party payables with a book value of $9.2m".

An associated company is Waiwera Thermal Resort, also in liquidation, the report said.

Preferential creditors claims were listed at just $94,000 of the $9.9m debts: Inland Revenue owed $50,000 for PAYE and GST as well as holiday pay for employees totalling $39,000.

The company manufactured and sold bottled water from premises leased from Waiwera Thermal Resorts, also in liquidation, the liquidators said.

But those operations stopped in February 2018, when Waiwera Thermal Resort started renovating its premises and facilities, the report said.

"The head lessor for the property subsequently re-entered the company's premises in October 2018 and cancelled the lease it held with Waiwera Thermal Resort, due to non-payment of rent," the report said.

The thermal resort business went into liquidation in February this year after a High Court order and the water bottling business went into liquidation on may 17 due to a trade creditor applying, the report said.

No creditors' meeting is proposed but seven parties have a registered security interest against the water business: BOC, Brambles NZ, Bronson & Jacobs, Brown Brothers Engineers, Guala Closures NZ O-I Nz and Visy Board, the report said.

Companies Office records list Waiwera Water NZ's director as Russian Mikhail Khimich of St Heliers and Leon Fingerhut of Las Vegas. The company is fully owned by Ordover Trust who address is the same as Fingerhut's in the United States.

In 2011, the Herald reported the Russian businessman Khimich had purchased Waiwera Water and Thermal Resort and was investing millions in an attempt to turn the company into the top premium brand water in the world.

Late last year, landowner Waiwera Properties announced the lease at the resort had been cancelled and locks on the doors changed after "continual tenant default", leaving a grim outlook for the operation.

Once, as many as 300,000 people a year enjoyed themselves at the hot pools complex north of Auckland.