Failed Dunedin businessman Paul Nicholson is continuing in his bid to resurrect another private investment company, following the collapse of its predecessor, Hurricane House, owing more than $4 million.
Having paid a $1.2 million non-refundable deposit to secure the $12 million 24-section Bendemeer subdivision near Queenstown, which is in receivership, Mr Nicholson's latest company, Bendemeer Trustees Ltd, has to settle the $10.8 million balance at the end of this month.
Contacted yesterday, receiver John Fisk, of PricewaterhouseCoopers, confirmed the $1.2 million deposit had been paid and settlement was due at the end of the month.
He said other parties had been "interested" in the subdivision when it first went on the market, but declined to release any further details on the sale for confidentiality reasons.
It was revealed in early May Mr Nicholson was again soliciting for funds, for his new company, Bendemeer Trustees Ltd.
While Dunedin liquidators have so far recovered about $535,000 of the $4.2 million owed to 25 mainly southern Hurricane House creditors, Mr Nicholson has approached several of those former investors soliciting for more funds, which has been reported in the Otago Daily Times.
In an April email, Mr Nicholson issued no prospectus, offering would-be investors a profile of risk and reward, and instead addressed it to "habitual investors". He omitted to mention the demise of Hurricane House, its losses or his role in the company.
Coverage of Mr Nicholson's plans for the Bendemeer Trust, leaked to the newspaper, has prompted him to recently again email some of those investors, claiming ODT coverage had a "tendency towards negative reporting".
"I am very busy trying to rectify the Hurricane House situation, caused by my straying from my knitting and exacerbated by the Global Financial Crisis," Mr Nicholson said in the most recently leaked email.
He asked the prospective investors that, if they knew who was leaking information, they "advise them that the negative press is not assisting the recovery process".
Several former Hurricane House investors have come forward in support of Mr Nicholson's plans to recoup their losses through starting a new property company, while several others have said they want "nothing more to do with Nicholson investments".
Mr Nicholson, who has had success in commercial property deals on behalf of investors in the past, came unstuck after lending $4.5 million, unsecured, to a Christchurch finance company which subsequently went into liquidation itself, owing about $17 million.
The original 130ha Bendemeer subdivision development, near Lake Hayes, came under the control of PricewaterhouseCoopers after the $400 million demise of Strategic Finance and its receivership in March 2010.
