Creditors accept offer from ex-Orcon owner

Photo / Richard Robinson

Creditors have accepted a 20c-in-the-dollar proposal from one of Orcon's former owners but a court has yet to approve the deal.

Vodafone, New Zealand's second biggest internet company and its biggest mobile firm, applied in June to have Warren John Hurst declared bankrupt.

Hurst is a director of the now-insolvent telco Vivid Networks and led a consortium of businesspeople who bought Orcon from state-owned Kordia last year.

Orcon has since been bought by CallPlus, which also runs Slingshot and holds the number three spot in the New Zealand internet market.

While Hurst admitted to being insolvent, he made an 11th-hour bid in the High Court at Auckland in September to put the bankruptcy action on hold while he puts a proposal to his creditors.

Hurst's liabilities totalled more than $3.5 million, the court heard at the time, and his creditors include former Orcon chief executive Greg McAlister.

Associate Judge Jeremy Doogue, in a September decision, agreed to put the bankruptcy action on hold.

Hurst's lawyer, Howard Thompson, told the Herald this morning that creditors had accepted his client's proposal, which would see them paid 20c-in-the-dollar.

"There has been a meeting of creditors at which the proposal was accepted," Thompson said.

Thompson said the proposal now needed court approval but this hadn't yet been filed.