Finance company boss to hand over $1.8m in assets to police

Capital + Merchant director Neal Nicholls in the dock at Auckland High Court. Photo / File

Around $1.8 million of assets linked to a convicted finance company boss is to be forfeited to the police.

The forfeiture come less than month after the man was released from jail on parole.

Capital + Merchant Finance director Neal Nicholls was jailed in 2012 for eight and a half years after being found guilty on Serious Fraud Office charges and admitting allegations made by the Financial Markets Authority.

He was released on parole last month.

Assets linked to Nicholls have been targeted by police since 2013 and some property tied to him was frozen under the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Act.

This followed a police investigation which disclosed Nicholls had contingent interests in various properties.

Rather than argue the case in-front of a judge, the police, Nicholls and the legal holders of that property have now reached an out-of-court settlement over the assets.

This means property worth around $1.8 million will now be forfeited to the Crown.

The settlement was approved this month by the High Court's Justice Christian Whata, who said the agreement was " a common sense compromise" that served the overall interests of justice.

Suppression orders, however, remain in place over many of the details of the settlement.

Assets associated with former C+M director Wayne Douglas - Nicholls' partner-in-crime - have also been forfeited to the Crown and police last year cut a deal with the owners of two properties linked to him.

A profit forfeiture order was made in connection with a Whangaparaoa property, with a capital value of $560,000 as of 2011 and which was bought by Douglas in 2008. The deal meant another property linked to Douglas, with a capital value of $1.5 million, was removed from the scope of police restraining orders.

Douglas was sentenced to a jail term of eight years and two months and is also out on parole. The action against his assets was the first time the police had targeted property tied to a failed finance company director.