KEY POINTS:
Liquidators charged with getting more than $70 million back for about 3000 Blue Chip investors could face a challenge tomorrow.
Investors are being encouraged to question the position of liquidator Jeff Meltzer and his team at Meltzer Mason Heath.
The team was appointed by Blue Chip shareholders - not the angry investors - and questions are now being asked. "One of the main issues will be who should be the liquidators of the Blue Chip group," said a letter distributed by Blue Chip investor organiser Greta Norman, quoting barristers Paul Dale and Daniel Grove.
"Mr Meltzer was not appointed by the court and it is open to the creditors to vote in favour of another appointment. That issue is likely to be canvassed at the creditors meeting."
Some want Meltzer to initiate court action on their behalf against the Blue Chip chiefs.
They also want him to apply to liquidate the entire Blue Chip empire. Many Blue Chip companies are not in liquidation and the Australian Stock Exchange-listed Blue Chip Financial Solutions remains suspended indefinitely.
Meltzer defended his position vigorously, saying he had no need to liquidate all the companies because he had unrestricted access to them all. But Dale has continually reminded investors that it is Meltzer's job to take legal action, a point he made more than once at the Remuera meeting of investors earlier this month.
Blue Chip investors spread from Northland to Southland will take part in two meetings tomorrow, one starting at 10am, the other at 2.30pm.
They could hear how much the liquidators can recover and how many cents in the dollar they will be paid back. But the complexity of the liquidations and the number of companies involved make payout indications less likely.
The Ellerslie Events Centre off Ascot Avenue at Greenlane is the venue. Video links will enable those outside Auckland to participate.
Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel has backed Meltzer, rejecting calls for Blue Chip to be put into statutory management but said the Government was keeping a close eye on the situation.
About 52 Blue Chip companies are under investigation.
Blue Chip sold investors apartments - many not built - via numerous methods and schemes.
It even engaged in "apartment futures" trading using a daredevil method it called Premium Income Product. Here, the mainly older investors entered agreements with Blue Chip to buy an apartment at a guaranteed price at a future date.
But in a high-risk exercise, Blue Chip was to sweep in just as the unit was being finished - and buy the place back, paying the elderly a profit and netting the gain expected to automatically accrue between when the place was planned and when it was finished.
The older investors are now the ones left to buy those places.
Without Blue Chip, developers are fully expected to hold those investors to the terms of the original contract, forcing one Waihi couple to face parting with $1 million for two apartments in the Stadium development, rising in Auckland's Quay Park.
A distraught older woman called the Herald, astonished to find she had unwittingly become an apartment futures trader - set to buy Stadium apartments for $450,000 each, when Blue Chip was meant to buy them back from her just before the structure was finished.
Barrister Daniel Grove put her in touch with a group of 20 other "apartment futures traders" at Stadium, all attempting to escape the deal they never expected to occur.
