Property developer McKenna bankrupted

Nigel McKenna File photo

Colourful Auckland developer Nigel McKenna is finally bankrupted.

Documents filed with Insolvency Services showed he filed a debtor's application to have himself declared broke.

That ends two years of chasing by The Fletcher Construction Co, owed $800,000 as the final payment on a $100 million Wellington hotel.

McKenna was fighting Fletcher's bankruptcy application on the grounds it was not fair or equitable.

However in a surprise move McKenna last week ditched a creditors' compromise scheme, which would have returned just over $1 million to creditors claiming more than $100 million.

McKenna's final move also averts the need for a further hearing in the High Court at Auckland, due today at 2pm.

McKenna has, over more than a decade, built award-winning apartment complex the Beaumont Quarter, residential project Lighter Quay with its Westin Hotel, the $1 billion Kawarau Falls multi-hotel property near Queenstown, Wellington's Rydges Hotel and many other projects.