Liquidators hoped the dividend, this week in the final stages of settlement with Auckland debtors, will be paid to about 50 mainly southern investors next week.
"At least it will be something for them to go on with before Christmas," Insolvency Management liquidator Gus Jenkins said yesterday when contacted.
While the 2.5c in the dollar dividend, totalling $120,000, appears a small return on the millions of dollars lost, Mr Jenkins was now targeting "at least" a 20c in the dollar return to investors, which could total $900,000 spread over 2010 in several dividends.
"It has taken some time, but we've finally got the ball rolling [towards getting settlements] and have several deals on the tables with debtors," Mr Jenkins said yesterday.
Throughout the liquidation, amid several disappointing revelations for the southern investors, liquidators had pursued negotiations with a large number of parties, including those with property interests in Auckland, Canterbury and Dunedin and a loan to an Australian gold-mining company.
The Hurricane collapse was understood to have placed several investors under financial strain with some family homes at stake, in default of the equity-based loans.
Hurricane, owned by Paul Nicholson of Dunedin, was placed in voluntary liquidation in March owing about 50 southern investors $8.5 million, but its largest loan of $4.5 million to Christchurch company Fendal Finance, was surprisingly unsecured and the finance company has since been placed in liquidation; owing $17.1 million.
In late-September an 11th-hour deal to pay the Dunedin-based creditors some of the $4.5 million fell over, in spite of a personal guarantee from Fendal Finance owner Gray Ussher.
Subsequently, Insolvency Management, representing the Hurricane investors, successfully petitioned for Mr Ussher to be declared bankrupt in the High Court at Christchurch, for a sum of $4.54 million.
With total claims of $17.1 million outstanding against Fendal Finance, and the likelihood of a $10 million shortfall, any payout for the southern investors appeared bleak.
However, Mr Jenkins said yesterday any further payments for the southern investors would come mainly from "negotiated settlements" made with defaulting debtors, as opposed to outright property sales.
Property values had "substantially reduced" during the recession and as second mortgage holders the southern creditors would get little or nothing after any sale.
"Twenty cents in the dollar is our target, but we would like to do better than that," Mr Jenkins said.
Mr Ussher, once a Dunedin-based finance company director, operated Fendal Finance in Christchurch since its incorporation in January 1998.
The Official Assignee was appointed in September to oversee its bankruptcy.
Fendal was a second-tier financier of commercial and residential borrowers.
