KEY POINTS:
The Accident Compensation Corporation is a shareholder in struggling finance companies Dominion Finance and Dorchester Finance, but the corporation says it won't be affected by their troubles.
ACC has 1.2 million shares in Dominion and 1 million in Dorchester, finance companies which last month stopped repaying deposit investors.
Dominion and North and South Finance, subsidiaries of Dominion Finance Holdings, owe $276 million to 13,000 investors and Dorchester's investors are owed $176m.
Last week ACC declined to answer questions from the Herald on Sunday, saying in a statement that comments about specific shareholdings could affect the market and "influence the decisions of others".
The ACC's investment in Dominion Finance represented less than 0.1 per cent of its New Zealand equity portfolio and "will not therefore have an impact on total returns".
Meanwhile, the chairman of another finance company wrote to investors assuring them "it was business as usual" weeks before the firm collapsed.
Nathans Finance director Roger Moses contacted investors after last July's Bridgecorp collapse and said the firm was "proud to provide peace of mind".
Five weeks later, Nathans went into receivership owing $166m.
The latest report by PricewaterhouseCoopers receivers John Waller and Colin McCloy says Nathans provided $171m of debt to parent company Vending Technologies Ltd (VTL), associated parties and VTL franchises.
The receivers also commented on VTL's reported loss of $133m for the 14 months to the end of August 2007. "The magnitude of the loss is of serious concern and is the subject of a thorough investigation by the receivers," the April report said.
Moses did not return Herald on Sunday calls.
