Petricevic speaks in own defence

Rod Petricevic. Photo / Greg Bowker

Accused Bridgecorp director Rod Petricevic labelled himself as an "entrepreneur" in court yesterday and said he had travelled "all over the world" examining hotels and property in his time with the failed finance firm.

Petricevic, accused by the Financial Markets Authority of misleading investors, is giving evidence in his own defence in the High Court at Auckland.

After apologising to investors who lost $459 million when the company collapsed, the 62-year-old talked yesterday about building up Bridgecorp when he took it over in 1992 and hiring people who "got results".

"I'm an entrepreneur ... [I was] growing the business, identifying opportunities for it," he said.

"At every opportunity we improved staff and we improved systems."

But the former managing director denied being involved in the day to-day operations, claiming that was handled by staff below him.

Nor was he involved in the line-by-line checking of Bridgecorp's 2006 prospectus, he said. The prospectus, which the Crown claims is misleading, was also sent to external lawyers and auditors, he said.

Bridgecorp fully disclosed all the issues it had faced, he claimed.

"Our chairman pored through every word in those disclosures to make sure they were right ... I personally was comforted [by that]," he said.

Former Bridgecorp chairman Bruce Davidson pleaded guilty last year to misleading investors and was sentenced to nine months' home detention, 200 hours of community work and ordered to pay $500,000 in reparations.

Although the Crown said Bridgecorp began missing payments to investors from February 7, 2007, Petricevic said no staff told him this.

He rejected evidence from Crown witnesses that he was told of missed payments and said the issue was never raised at board or executive meetings.

He said he first became aware Bridgecorp had missed payments that February and March from media reports. "I knew nothing about any missed payments until I read a newspaper concerning these proceedings."

Quizzed by his lawyer, Charles Cato, about Bridgecorp failing to make a large run of payments at the end of March 2007, Petricevic said they were not missed, because they fell due on the weekend and were paid on the next banking day.

"To this day I don't consider it a missed interest payment."

He said Crown evidence that he knew of a plan to blame delayed payments on a computer glitch was a "complete fiction".

Petricevic and fellow Bridgecorp directors Rob Roest and Peter Steigrad each face 10 Securities Act charges.

Their trial began in October and is expected run until next month.

As well as the Securities Act counts, Petricevic and Roest face eight charges of knowingly making false statements in offer documents.