After 10 years, the long-running saga that nearly saw a Far North Maori group lose its ancestral land over a multi-million debt could finally come to an end this month.
Maori landowners were forced to subdivide some of their 500ha of land at Matauri Bay, in the Far North, after a failed 2001 water bottling business venture left their Matauri X Corporation $6 million in debt.
That debt is believed to have now soared to more than $20 million because of penalty interest payments the shareholders could not pay to Strategic Finance, which owned the debt.
The group set up Matauri Bay Developments Ltd to sell the two stages of the subdivision - stage one with 81 sections and stage two with 58. Only 10 of the sections are believed to have sold.
On September 30, the final stages of the saga will be heard in the Maori Land Court when an application to repay the corporation's debt will be heard by Judge Andrew Spencer.
A report by the court-appointed administrator of Matauri X, Kevin Gillespie, sets out a plan to repay the debt over four years.
Mr Gillespie said that since Strategic Finance went into receivership in March 2010 negotiations had been ongoing to get a settlement plan. He said a plan had been agreed which provided a realistic repayment programme in several steps over four years that would enable sales of the subdivision lots. Mr Gillespie said the receivers wanted to convert the subdivision into general freehold title but the agreement was not conditional on that happening.
If the settlement is approved by the court, it will bring an end to its investigation into the affairs of the trust which began in 2002.
Mr Gillespie will then resign from his role as administrator, with the advisory committee for the corporation then carrying on the management of the shareholders' affairs.
He said the economic downturn meant few of the subdivision sections had sold but he would expect more to sell over the next four years to pay off the debt.
Mr Gillespie said it might be that the subdivision sections would get Maori freehold title, rather than general freehold title.
"They'd like to get that next step to general freehold but that's up to the court to decide. If they are freehold they will be easier to sell," Mr Gillespie said.
"The biggest thing is [if the repayment regime is approved] there will be no interest accruing for the first time in 10 years."
Former bosses of the Matauri X, including then chairman Hemi Rua Rapata, borrowed money from Bridgecorp Finance and Instant Funding in 2001 to invest in Eternal Waters mineral water company. The venture was expected to return up to $18 million over six years but went belly-up with losses of more than $2 million, leaving Matauri X with debts approaching $6 million.
Matauri X has 430 shareholders, with former Maori Affairs Minister Dover Samuels the single largest shareholder.