Boat builder's creditors fighting bank over chattels

Exterior of Sensation Yachts in Henderson, Auckland. Photo / Doug Sherring

Creditors of embattled boat builder Ivan Erceg will have to go to trial to keep damaged and half-finished luxury vessels docked in his former West Auckland boatyard.

The legal battles keep mounting for Erceg who, since leaving New Zealand for the south of France, has been bankrupted and his company, Sensation Yachts, placed into liquidation.

HSBC lost an application to have chattels removed from Erceg's former 5ha Henderson boatyard.

The bank is trying to have the chattels removed, which include three incomplete 50m-long, 10m-wide hulls, so that it can sell the property and recoup its $6.5 million investment.

Justice Raynor Asher scheduled the dispute between HSBC and Mr Erceg and his creditors to go to trial on November 1.

HSBC has said it will be difficult for the bank to sell the property with the chattels still attached.

But Balenia, who owns the hulls and paid Erceg more than $100 million to build five luxury super yachts that were never completed, does not want the vessels removed, as it claims there is nowhere for them to go.

Although Erceg was bankrupted early this year, court documents revealed he is believed to be worth more than $200 million.

He is the younger brother of alcohol baron Michael Erceg who died in a helicopter crash in the Waikato in 2005.

Michael Erceg's company Independent Liquor sold for $1.25 billion after his death.

His wife, Lynette Erceg, was estimated to be worth $1.5 billion, New Zealand's richest women, in this year's National Business Review's annual Rich List.