This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
NINE companies in the Australian arm of Bridgecorp have been placed into voluntary administrators.
PricewaterhouseCoopers partners Phil Carter and Stephen Longley will oversee the nine companies in the Australian arm of the Bridgecorp, a Trans-Tasman company headquartered in Sydney.
“We are in the process of assessing the group structure, the funding, assets and creditors.
“We will be working closely with both Ferrier Hodgson and PwC New Zealand,” Carter said.
On July 02 2007, the directors of Bridgecorp in NZ instructed the Covenant Trustee Company to appoint receivers, John Waller and Colin McCloy of PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand.
Bridgecorp is reputedly the second largest property finance and development group in NZ and follows the $A1 billion failure in Australia of similar high risk debenture property finance companies ACR, Fincorp and Westpoint.
In February last year, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission prevented Bridgecorp Finance from raising funds in Australia after finding one of its capital raising prospectus’ “raised significant concerns” about its financial position.
Last night, Permanent Nominees appointed Brian Silvia and Andrew Love from Ferrier Hodgson as the receivers of one company in the Australian group, Bridgecorp Finance. Bridgecorp Finance is the Australian lending arm of Bridgecorp, and has issued secured and unsecured notes to investors.
According to ASIC, Bridgecorp Finance, has $24 million of investor funds.
Whilst the New Zealand based Bridgecorp Ltd owes around 18,000 New Zealand investors about $NZ500 million ($A458 million).
Carter and Longley were appointed as administrators in Australia over the Bridgecorp Holdings Limited; Bridgecorp Holdings (Australia) Pty Limited; Bridgecorp Finance Limited; Bridgecorp Finance (Australia) Pty Ltd; Bridgecorp Australia Pty Ltd; Bridgecorp Properties Pty Limited; Bridgefirst Finance Limited; Bramac Investments Pty Limited and Bridgefirst Pty Limited.
The first creditors meeting will be held next Wednesday July 11 2007.
Australian Property Journal
