Entrepreneur faces the music after collapse

By ANNE GIBSON

Auckland's biggest building industry collapse for some years has left many wondering who the people are who own or control builder Goodall ABL (GABL) which is in voluntary liquidation.

The answer is Queenstown millionaire Graeme Hill, who has extensive tourism, building and motor vehicle interests that are spread from Auckland to Invercargill.

He owns 65 per cent of Amalgamated Builders Ltd (ABL), which in turn owns 80 per cent of collapsed Auckland builder GABL, which has losses estimated at $12.3 million and eight building projects around the city. These include The Quays apartments and Shed 24 apartments at the end of Princes Wharf.

Hill, who lives in a lavish home on the shores of picturesque Lake Hayes, fronted up to the creditors' meeting of GABL in Auckland last week, although GABL manager John Greenwood did not appear.

Hill's business interests include the franchise covering Southland's Toyota and Holden car dealerships and building companies which have erected some of New Zealand's best-known resorts.

ABL was formed in 1961 and came to Auckland in 1998, when it bought out Auckland businessman Ian Goodall's Goodall Construction Ltd.

The new company was called Goodall ABL and worked on various developments around the city. However, after a busy two years, it went into voluntary liquidation early this month.

Hill also has business connections with another well-known Queenstown resident, Jim Boult.

They were both directors of Shotover Jet, which has a current market capitalisation of $21.6 million.

In August last year Ngai Tahu Holdings Corporation bought 49 per cent of Shotover Jet. Boult and Hill sold part of the company through Armade Holdings, along with fellow businessman Roger Pierce.

Shotover Jet hit the headlines for making a $16.5 million loss to June 30, 1997, although it made $2.7 million profit for the year to June 30, 1999.

ABL built Boult's home near Lake Hayes and also built Graeme and Rowena Hill's alpine mansion.

Hill and associated interests own Invercargill's GWD Russells, which has the Holden and Toyota franchises in Southland. He is also chairman of that company.

Boult said he had known Hill since they worked together on Tiwai Point in the 1970s and that Hill took his social and commercial responsibilities very seriously.

The history of ABL goes back further, to when Hill founded the company and secured multimillion-dollar building contracts, including deals to put up some of Queenstown's most famous resorts.

At present, it is finishing the $10.5 million Southland Indoor Leisure Centre, a state-of-the-art sports facility at Surrey Park in Invercargill.

Prime Minister Helen Clark is due to open the centre on March 25, when it will also be the venue for a televised Lotto draw, according to a representative of the centre's owner, the Leisure Centre Charitable Trust.

So where did the trust get the money to pay ABL to have the centre built? It got $1 million from the Lottery Grants Board, $5 million from the Invercargill Licensing Trust and $4 million from the Community Trust of Southland. The 8000 sq m centre has five indoor courts and movable walls.

Surrey Park is used for athletics, softball and other sporting events, according to the Invercargill area manager of ABL, Bruce Middleton.

"With our changeable weather, it has been essential that an indoor facility has been built."

Middleton said he was spending much of his time fielding inquiries as a result of GABL's collapse.

Middleton listed the Queenstown hotels built by ABL as:

* Copthorne Resort Lakefront Hotel at the top of Stanley St. It has 247 rooms.

* The former THC Hotel, now called Gardens Parkroyal, with 204 rooms, built in the 1980s on the edges of Lake Wakatipu.

* The Millennium Hotel Queenstown, opposite the Copthorne, with 220 rooms including 21 suites. It is the newest of the ABL-built hotels, opening in November 1995.

* Novotel Queenstown, formerly the Holiday Inn, with 108 lake view rooms and 40 pool view rooms. Perched on Fern Hill with spectacular views over Lake Wakatipu it was built in the 1980s.

GABL was also involved in a failed bid to convert Dunedin's chief post office into a Parkroyal Hotel, using Dunedin City Council funds. GABL had planned to take on this job as a developer, but missed a council deadline to take up its offer of partial financial assistance.

Some have questioned why the Auckland-headquartered GABL would be developing the Dunedin site, when ABL was the established player in the Dunedin market.

The offer was withdrawn after the company failed to confirm the development in writing after it reached a deadlock over the purchase of the property with the building's owner, Singaporean businessman George Wuu, according to a report in the Otago Daily Times.

Asked why the project did not proceed, Hill told the Business Herald: "It didn't stack up - we couldn't get the numbers to work in the end."

In Queenstown, ABL is at present building a $4 million underground car park for the Queenstown and Lakes District Council. The car park, in Church St, will add 165 spaces to the town's central area.

G. R. Hill Ltd, partly owned by Hill, invested $546,265 in GABL, according to the liquidators' report on GABL from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, dated March 8. Debentures are held by Westpac Trust and G. R. Hill Ltd.

The debenture was granted during the restricted period, within six months before the start of liquidation, the liquidators noted: "In these circumstances the onus is on G. R. Hill Ltd to demonstrate that the company was able to pay its debts immediately after giving the charge, unless it can be shown that the security was supported by fresh consideration, that is new funds advanced."