A Dunedin start-up company partly financed by the Dunedin City Council's holding company is still operating, its chairman says, despite one of its products, a virtual mall, being on hold.
Dunedin City Holding Ltd (DCHL) has 1.2 million shares in The Street, for which it paid $700,000.
The company's virtual mall project, The Mall Plus, is not running on the Internet at the moment, with a "re-opening soon" notice on its home page and a link to Dunedin company Zeddd Technology.
The National Business Review ran a story recently that said the company had abandoned the online mall.
An anonymous letter to the Otago Daily Times this week said the company and its website had "collapsed".
DCHL chief executive Bevan Dodds, a director of The Street, refused to comment on the article, saying the NBR reporter had a "bee in his bonnet" about the company.
Asked if the NBR article was correct, he said he was not going to argue with its writer.
"I'm not going to go there. It's not worth commenting on," he said.
But chairman Geoff Thomas said yesterday both suggestions were incorrect.
Mr Thomas said The Mall Plus was "still going well", and it was being developed under licence by an outside company.
It was true the site was not operating, but there had been some sales while it was operating on an experimental basis.
The site needed enhancement and that was being done, Mr Thomas said.
Asked when DCHL might get a return on its investment, Mr Thomas said the company already had three contracts and was hoping to get more.
"And that's only one of many products The Street has," he said.
Mr Dodds said in 2006 an expected time frame for a return was three to five years.
