Developer 'wants to repay lost $6m'

Auckland property developer Garry Lawrence is facing bankruptcy but still wants to repay more than $6 million his investors lost in two failed projects, a court heard yesterday.

Lawrence, 54, was fined a total of $10,000 in the Auckland District Court on charges of breaching the Securities Act by failing to provide a prospectus for developments in Auckland and Blenheim.

A prospectus would have allowed potential investors an opportunity of making informed decisions before investing.

Investors lost $3.6 million in Metro City Apartments, a 16-level development of 108 studio and one-bedroom units in Central Auckland.

They lost $2.8 million in Marlborough Ridge II, a property subdivision near Blenheim.

The money was invested through Lawrence's Christchurch financial advisory company Canterbury Asset Management.

Lawrence was convicted of the charges in February.

Prosecutor Brian Dickey told Judge John Cadenhead that the chance of reparation money being found was a "vain hope".

A reparation order would be so small it would probably cost the court more to administer the payout to victims than it was worth, Mr Dickey said.

"They would be lucky to get one, two or three cents in the dollar."

He said many of the 106 investors were "small people". Some put money into the schemes from their retirement funds.

Lawrence had earlier told the court he considered the investors to be clients of his company and not public investors who were subject to the provisions of the Securities Act.

Through his lawyer, Guyon Foley, he told the judge he was "in a negative income situation" but hoped to win a counter claim against a bank that was pursuing him over a large personal guarantee.

Mr Foley said Lawrence felt a moral obligation to repay the money and would do his best to pay a fine and repay the investors who lost.

He had done his best to represent the investors' interests, and had put in $250,000 of his own money in an attempt to prop up the investments.

Two other people who had left the country for Australia were not subject to the court charges but were more culpable for the financial collapse of the developments.

- NZPA