Failed Middlemarch tourism operator Dave Thomson has been declared bankrupt and two more of his companies are on the brink of liquidation.
Liquidator Ian Nellies, of Insolvency Management Ltd, said the bankruptcy would further reduce any hopes of small creditors receiving the money owed to them by Mr Thomson after two of his companies went into liquidation last year, owing more than $1 million to creditors, many of them local and unsecured.
Applications to liquidate two more of Mr Thomson's companies - Adventure Tourism No. 2 Ltd and Cycle Surgery Middlemarch Ltd (which has not been operating for 18 months) - have also been lodged by the Inland Revenue Department and will be heard in the High Court at Dunedin on October 8.
There were no assets to realise from Cycle Surgery Franchises Ltd, which is in liquidation and to be wound up, but more than $133,000 has been claimed from Middlemarch Tourism Ltd (also in liquidation), which ran Blind Billy's Motor Camp, by 28 of 47 unsecured creditors.
The property is yet to be sold.
Mr Nellies said the liquidations continued, but a bankruptcy "draws a line in the sand" in terms of the level of likelihood creditors would see their money again.
"Realistically, you're not going to get anything."
Mr Thomson, who is now working for his wife, Pip Thomson, at Cycle Surgery Rail Trail Ltd, said the bankruptcy had brought him to a low point.
"It doesn't get much worse. All I can do is put my head down now and work. I'll just keep driving the [rail trail] shuttles."
As to paying back his creditors, he said they were mainly banks, and properties had been selling at a lot less than it had cost to build or buy them.
In a way, his misfortune had been a "massive benefit" to the village, because people had been able to buy properties and businesses they might otherwise have had to pay significantly more for.
"The rail trail really needs these businesses."
