The owner of brothel One33 has appointed liquidators to the business. Photo / Joe Gilfillan
The owner of brothel One33 has appointed liquidators to the business. Photo / Joe Gilfillan
The owners of Auckland brothel business One33 have had liquidators appointed, citing a dispute with a landlord and a downturn in trade.
Moet Investments, owned by 14 shareholders, operated the brothel, bar and adult entertainment venue on Vincent St in the central city.
But an initialliquidators' report said the shareholders had put the business under and blamed two factors for insolvency.
“It had been involved in a dispute with the landlord of the premises,” wrote Waterstone’s Damien Grant and Adam Botterill. “An arbitration was pending in relation to the lease and premise.
“It has also been indicated that the business had seen a general decline in sales over the years prior to liquidation. Ultimately, the shareholders elected to place the company [into liquidation] prior to incurring further costs.”
The owners of One33 Brothel decided to liquidate the business. Photo / Joe Gilfillan
A $115,000 loss was forecast in the initial report.
The company has $127,000 in liabilities offset by only $11,000 in assets, which include cash of $777, fixed assets of $5000 and motor vehicles, the value of which is yet to be quantified.
Unsecured creditors are listed as being owed $100,000 and Inland Revenue $27,000.
Shareholders in the business are Toni Davies, Moet Investments, Aartisha Kumar, Steve Langton, Adonis Corre, Mihir Kakars, Ijemoa Ezumba, Beatrix Reisinger, Manish Goel, Aamir Gidwani, Micheal Mesane, Richard Crofts, Kayley Hastie-Hunt and Maxim Kaluzhny, the Waterstone report said.
The sole director is Aartisha Kumar.
Secured creditors were listed as Coca-Cola Amatil (NZ), Music, Mt Roskill Cash’n Carry and Ice Machine Rentals.
One33 brothel at 133 Vincent St has gone into liquidation.
Unsecured creditor claims are yet to be received but the accountants said they understood there was an amount outstanding to the landlord.
Last June, the Herald reported how brothel boss Aartisha Kumar was refusing to leave, despite her landlord, who is a criminal barrister and former police officer, hiring security guards.
One33 had once promised party rooms, DJ booths and luxurious rooms with double spas and big-screen TVs for customers keen on spending time with its “sexy ladies”.
But last year the power was cut and its front doors barred, with the company owned by landlord and former Auckland District Law Society president Tony Bouchier saying it was owed $176,993 in unpaid rent and insurance costs.
Aartisha Kumar denied this, claiming Bouchier reneged on a verbal agreement to waive some payments for the 133 Vincent St tenancy during the Covid lockdown, and believes he has unfairly pressured her business to leave its lease.
She then planned a sit-in at the building, despite claiming security guards had been told to stop her using the toilets or have food delivered to her.
“This is a standoff now,” she said last June.
Kieran Tohill Law, the firm representing Bouchier’s company, sent a letter back last year rejecting One33’s legal claims.
It said Bouchier never agreed to a 50% rent reduction and One33 had instead arbitrarily stopped paying rent rather than negotiating in a fair manner.
Bouchier told media outlet BusinessDesk he had tried to negotiate rent repayments.
“I’ve got a record of probably about six emails where I have emailed saying, ‘Let’s negotiate this’: No response,” he said last year.
The liquidators will produce their next report on Moet Investments in six months. In the meantime, they are asking for creditor claims to be submitted.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
