KEY POINTS:
Blue Chip co-founder Bob Bangerter and two other Blue Chip directors have each received a $1 million demand from an Australian company linked to Blue Chip boss Mark Bryers.
A shocked Bangerter, in the middle of packing up his house after an urgent sale, received the demand from
ASX-listed Northern Crest Investments Ltd (formerly Blue Chip Financial Solutions) by email last Tuesday, requesting $1m to be paid the following day.
Bryers is a director and shareholder of Northern Crest and is selling property investment schemes in Sydney under Barkley Walsh, a subsidiary of Northern Crest.
A demand for $1 million was also sent to Neil Bell and Rikki Flowerday, who have worked closely with Bryers in the past and were directors of other Blue Chip companies.
Flowerday has moved to the Gold Coast and could not be contacted. But Bell has remained on the 12th floor of Qantas House in Queen St, where the Blue Chip head offices were housed.
He has been working with the liquidators and closing the office. Last week, he said he did not want to comment on the demand, saying it was "a pretty stressful time" and he wanted to deal with it in private.
In March, when hundreds of Blue Chip creditors gathered in Auckland for two liquidators' meetings, Bryers failed to show up and Bangerter, Bell and Flowerday bore the brunt of the investors' anger. Failure to attend is an offence under the Companies Act and carries a penalty of a fine of up to $50,000 or imprisonment for a maximum of two years.
Liquidator Jeff Meltzer notified the registrar of companies in April about Bryers' non-attendance and an investigation is under way.
The alleged debt relates to a franchise agreement between Blue Chip Financial Solutions and Diem Ltd, a New Zealand franchise company formed in September last year. However, Bangerter is unsure what the alleged $1 million debt is for and last week was unable to get information out of Northern Crest or its tax accountancy firm, Salmon Giles.
Bangerter said he, Bell and Flowerday signed personal guarantees as a sign of good faith with Lombard Finance, now in receivership, which had put up a term loan for the new franchise company. But because the letter was not from Lombard's receivers, Bangerter said he assumed it was to do with a franchise fee owed to Northern Crest.
Exactly who was a shareholder of Diem is in dispute. Bangerter claims he understood Mark Bryers was a 70 per cent shareholder, with Bangerter and Blue Chip directors Neil Bell and Rikki Flowerday each having a 10 per cent shareholding.
But Companies Office records show Bell has 80 per cent, and Bangerter and Flowerday have 10 per cent. Bangerter claims he never signed a second set of documents to change the shareholding, and has handed two sets of documents to the Serious Fraud Office and the Inland Revenue Department.
Bangerter's partner, Maree Aitkenhead, who has spent the past five months wading through piles of files and handing relevant documents to the Serious Fraud Office, is angry at the position she and Bangerter are in. She has enrolled to study for a BA in criminology this year.
In the meantime they are hurriedly packing after an urgent sale of their house - for $700,000 less than they paid for it last year - left them with six days to vacate. This week they will move into a rented house, with a $500,000 debt still owing to their bank.
Property millionaire Bob Jones is also after Bangerter, threatening to bankrupt him for a $395,000 debt allegedly owing for personal guarantees signed for two floors Blue Chip leased in Qantas House, which is owned by Robt Jones Holdings.
The $1m demand letter was forwarded by Butterworth Walters law firm in Auckland from Salmon Giles, a Melbourne tax accountancy firm acting for Northern Crest.
Lawyer John Walters has been closely associated with Blue Chip, has acted for Bryers and Bangerter and is a former shareholder in Northern Crest Investments. Walters said he had not been instructed to act for any of the parties and was merely forwarding the letter, which had been sent to his company by Salmon Giles.
Bryers, Hamish Giles of Salmon Giles, and Julian Gosse, chairman of Northern Crest, did not respond to messages left by the Herald on Sunday.
