Bridgecorp was placed in receivership in July 2007. (Photo / Martin Sykes)

Investors still owed $395m as Bridgecorp receivership ends

Author: NZ Herald,
Publish Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2017, 4:34PM

Receivers have finally wrapped up the affairs of finance company Bridgecorp more than a decade after it collapsed owing investors close to $459 million.

Colin McCloy and John Fisk, of firm PwC, filed their final report to the Companies Office on Friday afternoon, saying their receivership was at an end.

That comes some 10 and a half years on from Bridgecorp's failure amidst the onset of the GFC, during which scores of finance companies were wiped out taking billions of dollars of Kiwis' savings with them.

Bridgecorp's 14,367 investors, who trusted money to the company that was then lent for big property projects, have received payouts of $63.9m over the past decade — a return of only 13.98 cents in the dollar.

None of the $106.6m of advances associated with the project were recovered.

Bridgecorp's Rod Petricevic, Robert Roest, Gary Urwin and Peter Steigrad in the High Court at Auckland in 2011. Picture / NZME.

Nearly $19m of what receivers reaped came from a 2014 settlement with three of Bridgecorp's directors — Peter Steigrad, Bruce Davidson and Gary Urwin — and their insurers.

The receivers had filed a $320m claim against Steigrad, Davidson and Urwin claiming the trio had breached their directors' duties.

Former managing director Rod Petricevic and chief financial officer Rob Roest were not targeted in the action and receivers had already pursued the pair to bankruptcy.

The civil proceedings followed a criminal prosecution against the quintet brought by the Financial Markets Authority for misleading investors.

Petricevic and Roest were found guilty at trial and sentenced to six and a half years jail in 2012. Both have since been released on parole. Steigrad was also convicted after trial and was sentenced to nine months' home detention, 200 hours of community work and ordered to pay a $350,000 reparation.

Urwin pleaded guilty on the eve of the trial and was jailed for two years.

Davidson, Bridgecorp's chairman, had earlier pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine months' home detention, 200 hours of community work and ordered to pay $500,000.