A former partner in Windermere Gardens says the decision by some creditors to liquidate the company was based on bad advice and means some of them will never receive their money.
Glenn Walker said that course of action ignored an attempt by he and his brother, Bruce, to refinance the company to pay off debt. But Mr Walker told the Chronicle liquidation meant some of those same creditors would never get their money.
The gardens, north of Wanganui on State Highway 3, sold at a mortgagee sale for an undisclosed amount, after being placed in receivership in June.
The Chronicle understands 20 Wanganui businesses are owed thousands of dollars by the failed business.
The Walker brothers took over the business when their father, Budge Walker, died in 2008.
Their father had started the berry farm in 1972.
They decided to keep the business going, putting up the money for a new shop and cafe complex that ultimately was their undoing.
Mr Walker acknowledged they were in financial difficulty earlier in the year, but despite their efforts to work out a refinancing package with the bank, the creditors applied to the High Court in Wanganui to put the berry farm into liquidation.
The creditors included Tony White Builders, Don Gilbertson Electrical, Blair Watson (Wanganui Farm Supplies), Machinery and Maintenance, Wanganui Farm Supplies, and Alexander Contracting. They were owed more than $110,000.
Lawyers representing this group wrote to Windermere Farms on March 21 saying liquidation proceedings had started.
Mr Walker said they met the creditors and kept them updated on the rescue plan "but at the end of the day those who had never done business with us before said if we couldn't pay then they would wind us up".
"If you force a company to go to the wall, the mortgage holders, the secured creditors, the Government and IRD always get paid before anyone else," Mr Walker said.
They had given the creditors a bail-out plan and asked to be given until June 30 to refinance the business and work out a repayment programme.
"They just simply wouldn't budge on it," Mr Walker said.
It was his opinion that some of the creditors had received bum advice and a group of hotheads wanted to force the issue.
"There were no guarantees but the probability of them being paid was higher. What they did was shoot themselves in the foot," Mr Walker said.
Usually the farm was able to harvest two crops in a season and that second one was the bonus. "But this year the weather intervened, the bees didn't arrive and the second crop didn't come," he said. "That's normally a $200,000-$300,000 crop for us, but when it doesn't happen what can you do?"
He said he did not think they over-committed with the project.
Cost over-runs and harvest issues meant a cash-flow problem, and Mr Walker said that was when they started looking around for a 50 per cent joint-venture partner "but we needed time to develop that".
"That single action of them going to court in March simply cut off that option," Mr Walker said.
The result had cost them their family business and his personal loss was well over $350,000.
"Those who say I'm getting my money back simply don't know the reality of what's happened here," Mr Walker said.
Some of the claims being made about the demise of Windermere Gardens had been enormously damaging, publicly and privately.
"I believe we've acted as responsibly as we possibly could but in this business there are things that happen that are just beyond your control," he said.
When the creditors put the pressure on there were threats made.
"One guy said he was going to come out here with a bulldozer and bulldoze all our crops. Another said he was going to come out here and weed-spray the crops," Mr Walker said.
"In the end it has cost me financially, and it has cost me my marriage."
Mr Walker said he said nothing until now because he was dealing with banks, court action and other legal processes.
The business' new owner, New Plymouth man Tony Boswell, took over last Friday.
More: Windermere Gardens creditor - "I doubt we'll get our money"