It was a lifestyle of flashy opulence, glamour and wealth, until the money ran out. Jane Phare charts the downfall of the Du Val husband-and-wife property developers.
The residents of stately Victoria Ave would have been agog as they watched Kenyon and Charlotte Clarke’s House of Du Val begin to crumble. First, a humiliating, early-morning raid by officials from the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Then police wearing bullet-proof vests arrived at their Remuera home, sidling past a late model Landrover Defender and a Range Rover parked in the driveway. The police and FMA officials left with guns and documents, a signal that the good life, as the Clarkes knew it, had come to an end.
Remuera’s old money would have sniffed a knowing sniff. New money. The old monied don’t flash wealth about on social media, nor make over-the-top reality TV shows about their glamorous lifestyles to spruik their property development companies – not when PwC insolvency expert John Fisk revealed alleged liabilities of $250 million last month.
Eighteen days later the Government, scrambling to control the group to prevent further harm to investors and creditors, stepped in after Cabinet took the rare step to make an order to appoint statutory managers to the Du Val group, following a recommendation from the FMA. Consumer Minister Andrew Bayly said the group had “significant liabilities” and immediate intervention was needed.
Now investors, including the ones the FMA was trying to protect, are left wondering if they’ll ever see their life’s savings again. Contractors appearing on TV outside half-finished apartments in Auckland wonder how they will pay their subbies and if their businesses will survive Du Val. And the Clarkes, used to a seemingly bottomless pit of money and luxury, have had their living expenses cut to a court-ordered $1500 each a week.
Those raids on August 2 would have been a bombshell to the many faithful Du Val followers and believers, and a gut-wrenching shock to between 120 and 150 investors, home buyers, commercial lenders and tradespeople who are owed money.
But anyone keeping a close eye on the Du Val story would know the cracks started showing in the Clarke’s facade years ago. (See timeline below). There were alarm bells, some loud ones, sounding long before the August dawn raids.
As far back as October 2021, the FMA ordered the Du Val group to remove misleading or deceptive advertising promoting its mortgage fund. Du Val took legal action the following year but its claim that the FMA had “misapplied and misconstrued” the law was dismissed by the High Court.
In March last year, the FMA again warned Du Val over misleading or deceptive statements to mortgage-fund investors about why cash distributions had been suspended.
Those warning signs may well have been overshadowed by the flashy success of the everything-we-touch-turns-to-gold image fostered by Kenyon and Charlotte Clarke. They were masters at their own PR. Their social media posts are endlessly glamorous. The Du Val Group website is slick, professional, convincing.
A Du Val Property Group Facebook post in 2018 shows a new red 488 convertible Ferrari parked next to a blue Bentley Continental GT.
“Every time we launch a new project I like to order a new car ... A little blue with my red? Or British with Italian?” the post reads.
“It keeps me #focussed, #motivated and #driven to complete a new project on time, while building the company I love #duval, as New Zealand’s largest and most trusted brand in the new home apartment market.”
Reactions to that 2018 Facebook post were mixed. “Mmmmm love it,” wrote one, accompanied by a thumbs-up emoji. Another posted three vomit emojis.
The point seemed that if enough people gave the thumbs up, they could turn into investors wanting a slice of the action – good returns and helping the housing crisis.
When journalists started poking holes in the Du Val story, questioning if the perception of wealth and success was real, the Clarkes hotly responded and sometimes with lawyers in tow. To them, image was everything and it appeared they would protect that at all costs.
F*** you and we hate your crew
In 2021, when the Herald’s property editor Anne Gibson wrote about a burst water main in Lakewood Plaza in Manukau, developed by the Du Val Group with Downey Construction in 2020, Kenyon Clarke responded with a “F*** you” message on his Instagram account. Scores of residents in the 17-level block had to evacuate after a burst water main on the 11th floor sent water cascading below. Clarke posted a screenshot of the Herald story, saying the tenants were back home and insurance was paying for the repairs. “Slow news day,” he said. He added the message “F*** YOU ... and we hate your whole crew” and overlaid the post with Lily Allen’s F*** You song.
But in August this year, after news that receivers and managers had been appointed to the Du Val Group, owners of apartments in Lakewood Plaza, managed by Du Val entities, told the Herald they were still paying millions of dollars to fix water damage from three years ago.
At one stage, Auckland journalist Maria Slade had security guards stationed outside her home after she revealed earlier this year that the Clarkes did not own the various Remuera homes they lived in. NBR’s publisher was sufficiently alarmed by the tone of a phone call from Kenyon Clarke, in which he said he knew where Slade lived, to call in security.
The Clarkes preferred a different story, starring in a reality TV show The Property Developers – yet to screen – which oozes money and success with just the right amount of crassness to give The Real Housewives of Auckland a run for its money.
A two-minute YouTube promo gives viewers glimpses of life in the Clarkes’ world that may or may not be real, using props that may or may not be rented: a gleaming black Rolls-Royce Phantom with a Du Val number plate; a helicopter over the Hauraki Gulf, an aerial shot of Mudbrick Vineyard and restaurant on Waiheke Island, a sleek superyacht at anchor. And a private jet with the Clarkes linking arms as they walk across the tarmac at Queenstown Airport, a trip that costs between $9000 and $14,600 one way.
It’s a world of champagne drinking, immaculate nails, makeup done by celebrity artist Chay Roberts, and high-fashion clothes styled by Lulu Wilcox and Crane Brothers.
Kenyon is interviewed on a luxurious couch with Prada and Yves Saint Laurent coffee-table books in the background. The home, overlooking the Ōrākei Basin, has a tennis court and pool and was once owned by ice-cream richlister Diane Foreman. It turns out the property was rented, like the $6.4m Victoria Ave property raided by the FMA and the police.
Kenyon, speaking as though he has a cork stuck in his mouth, says he’s been a property developer for 27 years. Then he admits: “I’m a very difficult human being to be around. Being married to me is not going to be easy, right?”
Charlotte doesn’t seem to mind. At home with their four children, her husband is like a “big cuddly bear”, she simpers. At work, she says, “Kenyon is like a bull in a china store”, before dissolving into laughter.
There’s little to laugh about now. In hindsight, clips filmed more than two years ago now sound like prophetic and alarming warnings.
Charlotte: “I’m really concerned that there are some pretty serious issues with it.”
Kenyon: “Do you know what, I actually need to call my lawyers. It was kind of funny, but if he’s putting this shit up publicly, what the f***”.
Charlotte: “Let’s just say that I think that basically we just burned a million dollars.”
Kenyon: “Charlotte just brings that sense of order to the chaos, and sometimes she can give me a hard time but she is also the person that calls me on my bullshit.”
Charlotte, long blonde locks flowing from beneath a hard hat as she strides in slow motion on a building site, is portrayed as a woman making it in a man’s world.
Kenyon is portrayed as ... well, in one clip he picks up the family’s fluffy cat and tosses it away with the words “Please f**k off”.
He was aiming high back then, declaring: “I’ve made it very clear that our goal is to build a multibillion-dollar business, and I want to give over a billion dollars in my lifetime.”
Charlotte told her husband: “Babe, if anyone can do it you can.”
He talks of their shared dream, starting with nothing. Clarke was declared bankrupt in 2009 after companies that built studio apartments in Hamilton, under the control of Kenyon and his mother Jenepher, were placed in receivership, owing an estimated $50m. Clarke stood out in Hamilton back in the early 2000s, tooling around in a Ferrari at a time when only Jafas visiting from Auckland drove that sort of car.
In 2010, when Clarke would still have been in bankruptcy, the Herald reported that a $1b-plus property fund based in New Zealand had drawn international media coverage. Here was Du Val Group planning to raise around $1b in two funds focusing on real estate in Australia and New Zealand. At the time, Kenyon Clarke’s father Peter was involved in Du Val and Charlotte Clarke said the company “has nothing to do with Kenyon”. But soon, Du Val was very much to do with Kenyon Clarke, who became CEO in 2013, a role he relinquished last year when he handed it over to his wife.
In fact, the Clarkes did give some money away through their Du Val Foundation. On their website is a photo of a perfectly coiffed Charlotte Clarke MC-ing a silent auction at a function to raise money for Christmas hampers for needy families.
At one stage they sponsored the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter, provided scholarships to Diocesan School for Girls, organised a Lego drive at Saint Kentigern Boys’ School and, in 2021, signed up as a sponsor for the Blues Super Rugby team. The Du Val logo was prominent on the collars of the players’ shirts in the Super Rugby final against the Chiefs in June but sponsorship money is reportedly still owing.
They were charitable links that gave the Clarkes and Du Val credibility and respectability.
The foundation’s stated purpose is to bring awareness to mental health issues and suicide in partnership with other organisations, and to relieve poverty by supporting organisations providing educational opportunities for children.
To that end, the Clarkes formed a close association with former barber Mataio (Matt) Brown and his wife Sarah, who were both awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to mental health and the protection of family violence in 2022. They co-founded She is Not Your Rehab, an anti-violence programme aimed at men.
Sarah Brown declined to be interviewed, instead sending a statement in which she said She is Not Your rehab had received administrative and accounting support from the Du Val Foundation. The foundation had acted as a fund holder between August 2020 and December 2023. The Du Val Foundation had not taken a percentage of the accepted funds to cover its own costs incurred while managing the funds, the statement said.
Sarah Brown worked as a producer on the Clarkes’ reality TV show The Property Developers, alongside Brad Stent, founder of production company Oaia Road Studios. Brown also worked in a PR/comms role for the show and the Clarkes, with her communications and research company Sister Sister. In an email trail between a Herald writer, Brown, Kenyon Clarke and Stent in February this year, Brown is keen for the Herald to write more about Clarke and series two of The Property Developers.
In response to questions about when the first series would screen, Stent said Oaia Road held the distribution rights but was still waiting for clarity from the receivers in terms of its contractual position with the Du Val group.
Back in 2022, the Clarkes told the Herald they had left Auckland to set up global headquarters in Singapore, with plans to build a beachfront home in a luxury gated community on Naisoso Island, joined by a causeway to Fiji’s main island of Viti Levu near Denarau.
By February this year, there was no sign of them dialling back those plans. In the February email, Clarke says: “Fiji will always hold a special place in our hearts and we will be spending quite a bit of time there this year. It’s where we got engaged. We are actively looking for the right piece of land to build on. We didn’t go ahead with the initial land we looked at as the rules for the body corporate wouldn’t allow for our dogs to come with us and we want to spend a significant portion of each year there.”
Singapore is a jurisdiction the couple are “seriously considering” as a location to dual list Du Val along with the NZX, he says.
“We haven’t finalised this or met with the NZX or the SGX or any of the regulators. We are keeping options open although Singapore is the most likely option.”
He finishes with a flourish. “I’m trying to twist Charlotte’s arm to do a second season of the show. Watch this space.”
In response to the events of August 2, Kenyon Clarke posted on his Instagram an image of a gagged Statue of Liberty overlaid with Olivia Fern’s song We Will Not Be Silenced. Charlotte Clarke quoted Theodore Roosevelt at length about those who strive valiantly ... ”if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”.
Kenyon and Charlotte Clarke did not respond to questions emailed by the Herald.
Jane Phare is a senior Auckland-based business, features and investigations journalist, former assistant editor of NZ Herald and former editor of the Weekend Herald and Viva.