Christopher Luxon and Chris Bishop speak to the media.
An initial version of this story had an incorrect photo attached to it, which appeared on both the Hawke’s Bay Today’s online homepage and its social media. Hawke’s Bay Today regrets the error.
Embattled Napier property developer Malcolm Herbert, who was caught-up in several troubled projects in New Zealand and Fiji, has died.
Sources confirmed to Hawke’s Bay Today Herbert’s death on Monday was thought to have been from natural causes. He was 61.
In 2010 he and brother Anthony Herbert, as directorsof Herbert Construction Fiji Ltd, were prohibited from leaving Fiji pending resolution of matters linked to the company involvement with the failed Momi Bay resort, which had been partly funded by failed New Zealand finance company Bridgecorp.
In 2013 a statement on behalf of Herbert as New Zealand company Herbert Construction director, as it faced possible liquidation, said it owed $17 million as a result of the Momi Bay situation.
The company was put “under stress”, with recession in the construction industry adding “further stress”.
Herbert Construction was put into liquidation in 2015, having traded for about 50 years, and a subsequent company, also Herbert Construction, registered in 2022, was put into liquidation last year.
The latter action was over the redevelopment of former legal offices, to be known as Raffles Apartments, in Raffles St, near the Napier RSA.
A former office building in Napier being developed as Raffles Apartments. Construction came to a halt late last year. Photo / NZME
The company also built the PWC Building on the corner of Raffles and Munroe streets, opened in 2007 and undertook the 2021 conversion to an accommodation complex which reopened as the Swiss-Belboutique Napier hotel.
But another of his companies, HG Hotels Ltd, created in 2021 in the conversion, was placed in receivership last year, although the hotel continues in third-party management.
The company had also been involved in the building in Napier of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council headquarters in Napier (which went to court over leaky-building issues), the Onekawa Aquatic Centre and the former airport terminal, and elsewhere in Hawke’s Bay the former Havelock North New World supermarket and Harvey Norman, and Countdown stores in various North Island locations.
Herbert Construction, registered in 2022, was put into liquidation last year over the redevelopment of former legal offices, to be known as Raffles Apartments. Construction (pictured) stopped last year. Photo / NZME
Another of Herbert’s companies, HG Hotels Ltd, which operated the Swiss-Belboutique Napier under the management of a third party, the Hong-Kong based Swiss-Bel International, went into receivership in June last year.
The building was owned by another Herbert entity, the Thorn Place Trust, which was also put into receivership last year.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
