Debt collector chases Petricevic for $2.2m

Rod Petricevic's $4.4 million Remuera home is being staked out. Photo / Greg Bowker

More than $2.2 million has been transferred to the family trust of Rod Petricevic from a Bridgecorp-related finance company of which he and his wife were the only directors.

Bankrupt, banned as a company director and facing criminal charges, Petricevic and Mary Petricevic are now being chased around Auckland by a debt collector working for Navigator Finance.

The couple were the sole directors of Navigator Finance, which was put into liquidation this month. The majority shareholder is BFSL 2007 Ltd, which is in receivership as part of the collapsed Bridgecorp empire.

A preliminary report on the Companies Office website shows the liquidators have only a limited number of Navigator Finance records and were unable to estimate how much money would be recovered for creditors.

At this stage, the liquidator, Andrew McKay of Corporate Finance, was unsure if there were any assets other than the unsecured advance to Petricevic's family trust.

"One asset of the company is an unsecured advance to the R.M. Petricevic Family Trust for the sum of $2,258,364. This advance had not been repaid as at the date of liquidation, and the liquidators have made demand on the trustees of the trust for the repayment of this sum," he reported.

Navigator Finance was set up as a company in 2007 and the $2.2 million unsecured loan to the family trust was also transferred that year.

The liquidators' report said the debt had not been repaid and further action would be taken.

The Weekend Herald understands a debt collector has been staking out Petricevic's $4.4 million Remuera home to serve court papers on him.

Petricevic can often be found at the Remuera Golf Club, where he plays about twice a week. His handicap has dropped from 34 to 20 since the collapse of Bridgecorp in 2007.

Pensioner Barry Keon lost $90,000 when the firm failed in mid-2007 owing $460 million, and was angered to learn of the $2.2 million unsecured loan to the Petricevic trust.

A former Manukau City councillor, the 71-year-old said Petricevic was "thumbing his nose" by living a lavish lifestyle when so many people had lost their life savings.

Said Mr Keon: "You work so hard to save for your retirement. We were planning on doing trips with our family and our grandkids. And we can't do it now. If I saw him in the street, I'd go over and rough him up. That's how I feel."

In 2008, Bridgecorp receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers successfully bankrupted Petricevic for the $666,186 he owed creditors for a personal tax bill the company paid for him in September 2006.

The court also ordered that his $120,000 Porsche - which he tried to hide in his family trust after Bridgecorp collapsed - be sold.

He now drives a black 1999 VW Golf, while Mary Petricevic is behind the wheel of a 2007 silver Mercedes-Benz, which was bought on finance a few months after the Bridgecorp collapse.

New criminal charges were laid this week, as part of the Securities Commission and the Companies Office case against Rod Petricevic, but separate from the Serious Fraud Office charges.

The SFO charges focus on two aspects: the luxury launch Medici and an alleged dishonest payment of $1.2 million to an unregistered company called ABb run by ex-model Janita Wright, a personal friend of Petricevic. She is not facing any charges.

The Weekend Herald revealed in June last year that ABb invoiced Bridgecorp for nearly $1.2 million for marketing consultancy work and operating an after-hours call centre.

But the SFO alleges ABb was "in essence a sham to enable Mr Petricevic to make alleged fraudulent payments from Bridgecorp".

Petricevic is also facing charges over the purchase of the $1.8 million Medici, which was paid for with Bridgecorp money but owned by Poseidon, a firm Petricevic directed and owned.

The Companies Office has banned Petricevic and fellow Bridgecorp director Rob Roest from running any company in NZ for the next five years.