Petricevic says Bridgecorp prospectus wording was wrong

Rod Petricevic. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Accused director Rod Petricevic has told the High Court the wording of a Bridgecorp prospectus was wrong and should have been changed.

Petricevic - along with fellow directors Rob Roest and Peter Steigrad - is on trial in Auckland for allegedly misleading investors in Bridgecorp's prospectuses and other offer documents.

As well as charges under the Securities Act, Petricevic and Roest face eight counts of knowingly making false statements in offer documents that Bridgecorp had never missed interest payments or repayments of principal to investors.

After appearing to give evidence in his own defence this week, Petricevic is now undergoing a grilling cross-examination by Crown lawyer Warren Cathcart.

In court this morning, Petricevic said the exact wording in Bridgecorp's 2006 prospectus about when investors would be paid interest was an anomaly and should have been changed.

"The prospectus was wrong...it should have been changed immediately and it wasn't," Petricevic said.

The matter was brought to the former managing director's attention when he received a letter from an angry investor complaining that an interest payment due on March 31, 2007 was late.

A large run of interest scheduled to go to investors on March 31 was paid on the following Monday (April 2) because Bridgecorp did not have enough cleared funds in one of its bank accounts.

However, according to Petricevic the payment was delayed - not missed - because March 31 was a Saturday and the funds went out on the next business day.

Despite having thought about the "anomaly" in the prospectus, Petricevic said he did not raise it at the April 2007 board meeting.

The 62-year-old repeated evidence given to the court yesterday that he did not read the document in full, despite signing it.

"I read the markups. I didn't read the full prospectus," Petricevic said yesterday.

Cross-examination of Petricevic is expected to finish today.

Following that, Roest and Steigrad are due to give evidence in their own defence.

The trio on trial deny all the charges against them.