Former Blue Chip boss Mark Bryers makes his way to the Auckland High Court in 2015. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Former Blue Chip boss Mark Bryers makes his way to the Auckland High Court in 2015. Photo / Brett Phibbs
To mark the Herald on Sunday's 15th anniversary, we have gone back to some of our biggest newsmakers to find out where they are now.
Mark Bryers is self-employed and working from a small apartment in Sydney where he has had a rocky run in business since the collapse ofthe house of cards that was the Blue Chip empire he co-founded.
The Blue Chip group of companies failed in 2008 owing $84 million to more than 2000 investors.
In 2009 Bryers was adjudged bankrupt in New Zealand with individual debt obligations of $230 million.
In 2010 he pleaded guilty to 34 financial reporting charges and was fined $37,500 and ordered to complete 75 hours of community work.
At Blue Chip's peak, Bryer's estimated personal wealth was listed at $70 million on the NBR Rich List.
During this time he was a frequent visitor to an Auckland brothel, sometimes spending thousands of dollars to block-book the venue and its women. The Herald On Sunday reported in 2008 that on at least one occasion, the men who accompanied Bryers were business associates.
By the time Blue Chip hit trouble in New Zealand, Bryers had moved to Australia where he was involved in setting up a similar operation. He then worked for other businesses with a property investment advice element that were also unsuccessful.
Bryers, 61, was involved with Northern Crest (formerly Blue Chip Financial Solutions), the Australian-registered parent of the New Zealand-based Blue Chip group, and then with Talos Accounting Group both of which were liquidated.
Talos collapsed in 2015, a year after the Herald revealed Bryers, using the name Mark Ryan, was helping to manage the group.
In 2016, Stephen Peter Lacy, the director of Talos was declared bankrupt owing A$12.8 million ($13.2m). He had signed personal guarantees for millions of dollars of loans associated with the Talos business, an aggregated accounting and financial services operation with some hallmarks of the disastrous Blue Chip companies.
He is currently listed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as the sole director, secretary and shareholder of Strategic Capital Resources Pty Ltd.
The company was registered in May last year and filings at the time indicate he lives and works from a 1990 one-bedroom, zero-carpark apartment in Glebe, a central Sydney suburb noted for its bookshops, galleries, bustling Saturday market and the ethnic restaurants and eclectic cafes and pubs that line Glebe Point Road.
Emmerson
The apartment last sold in 2016 for A$850,000 but the Sydney property market has since slumped.
Bryers and his company's names cropped up during a recent court hearing to wind up a group of companies in the renewable energies sector.
Strategic had arranged loan facilities for those companies. Asset estimates provided by Strategic were called into question, NBR reported last month.
Bryers was last seen in New Zealand at the Auckland High Court in March 2015 where he successfully gained a discharge from bankruptcy.
Associate Judge Jeremy Doogue said that Bryers did represent a risk, even though he did not intend to relocate to this country. The judge banned him from acting as a manager or director in New Zealand until 2022.
The judge said it was not up to him to comment on whether it was desirable from the perspective of the Australian public for Bryers to be taking part in business there.
