$6m for one fight... and David Tua doesn't even own his home

PHIL TAYLOR continues his investigation into the boxer's tangled finances.

As July turned into August, David Tua's new accountant and lawyer trawled through files taken from Martin Pugh's offices.

Document by document the gloom deepened. Soon enough, the boxer had to be told: little was left of the $20 million in purses - about half earned since Pugh joined the team in 1999 - that Tua's career fights brought in.

For a top performer in a sport noted for aggression, Tua is said to have been remarkably restrained.

They couldn't even assure him he owned his own home. The downtown Auckland penthouse, where Tua lives with his wife, Robina, was bought totally with money borrowed from the bank. Pugh did the deal in December 2002, paying $1.1 million - almost twice the Government valuation at the time, and signing the mortgage for up to $1.3 million.

Money had gone out of the boxing company, Tuaman Inc Ltd, in all directions, some to people with no connection to Tuaman, some to companies Tua did not know.

If he had no guarantee he owned his own apartment, a consolation was he'd fulfilled a childhood ambition by buying a comfortable home for his parents.

His father, Tuavale, guided the young Tua into boxing, for the exercise, discipline and ability to look after oneself that it offered. It was Dad who encouraged his son's move to the professional ranks, telling him that was where the financial reward for his effort and talent lay.

"I was interested in getting enough money to buy my parents a house," Tua says in his affidavit. "This is all we ever wanted to do as young kids. We wanted to say 'thank you' to our parents. As kids we had slept on a concrete floor in a flat with my family. These were hard times."

Tua's parents' house is on a busy road in the south Auckland suburb of Mangere. Two storey and with pillared entry, it is grand in the Howick style and appears grander by contrast with its surroundings.

This is a poor area. It's a short stroll to the Samoan Assembly of God, a nondescript corrugated iron building featuring an impressive iron cross and offering Sky TV.

A little further along the road is the Mormon church, a statement in brick and slate on grounds groomed like a golf course.

Within staggering distance are the shops, the liquor store making its presence known with a towering cutout of a bottle of "Kentucky Gold whisky".

A few doors along, Dr Mistry's surgery does business behind a cracked Armourglass door. Cut-price pregnancy tests are on offer.

Mr and Mrs Tua's house features a cutout too. It's life-size, of their son about the time he won Olympic bronze at Barcelona 12 years ago, and has pride of place in the entrance hall. Honed and lean, loaded fists encased in red leather gloves, the young boxer is in his prime.

This is the house those fists built.

How much they also contributed to the home Pugh shares with his partner, Sally Cross, on the exclusive avenues which slope towards Takapuna's beaches has become a moot point.

Liquor advertising is more discreet in that suburb, and Pugh's near neighbours include Craig Heatley, one of New Zealand's richest men.

That Tuaman Inc money went on Pugh's home was among the surprises in the files and has been raised in the bitter litigation. The renovation has been extensive. The property sold in 1992 for $850,000 but is on the market now for close to $6 million.

The builder who worked on Tua's parents' home also renovated Pugh's house. Invoices on Tuaman Inc files show Pugh's Takapuna home as the delivery address for building materials and furnishings.

Total building expenses paid from Tuaman Inc money came to almost $1 million. Tua's advisers say hundreds of thousands may have been spent on Pugh's home; Pugh's former accountant, whistleblower Jennie Grant, says in her affidavit it could be as much as $750,000 when the cost of furnishings are added.

During these weeks of revelation, Tua's advisers found that the penthouse apartment and a 50ha block of coastal land at Pakiri, 90 minutes drive north of Auckland, were not owned by the boxer, as he had thought, but by Tuaman Inc. Tua owns only half the company's shares and so has a clear claim to only half these assets.

There were other issues with Pakiri. A company called Sports Tech Ltd had registered a $5m charge on the title. A charge is used to secure a claimed financial interest over an asset.

Sports Tech was a name new to Tua, but one that soon loomed large in his affairs.

It is registered in Vanuatu and operates under a cloak of secrecy provided by the island nation's tax haven laws.

It turns out Sports Tech owns the trade-mark "Tuaman", although no record has turned up of it having paid Tuaman Inc, or Tua, for the rights.

But Tuaman Inc has paid Sports Tech money - $1.14 million was sent to it in Vanuatu.

Of this, $809,000 soon came back to New Zealand to the Baron and Lunar trust, alleged to be the family trust of Pugh and Cross.

Pugh and Barry claim Sports Tech's involvement is legitimate. Pugh has mentioned a tax purpose and a device to protect assets "from wives". He said Tuaman Inc was the beneficial owner through a trust.

But he hasn't produced any such trust document and Tony Forlong, the chartered accountant hired by Tua, says in his affidavit they had not found one, or a record of "any expert taxation advice on the matter" on company files.

But they did discover that Eftpos cards for a Sports Tech bank account in Vanuatu had been issued in the names of Pugh, Cross, Barry, his wife, a business partner of Pugh's and Richard Gregory.

Richard Gregory is the apparent owner of Sports Tech, but the Herald believes Pugh controls the company.

Gregory - formerly Richard Michael Booth - is a longtime friend of Pugh's who changed his name in 1999.

Gregory, a house painter and used car salesman, appears to have seldom been out of debt.

But he has done well out of David Tua. He has received more than $200,000 from Tuaman Inc in a lump sum sent to Vanuatu and fortnightly "wages" of $1600 sent to a bank account in Queensland.

Pugh put his mate on the payroll in August 2000, three months before Tua fought Lennox Lewis for a world heavyweight title, and a $6 million payday.

When Jennie Grant asked why Gregory was being paid, she says Pugh told her to mind her own business and said that "if I told you, I'd have to kill you".

Tua had thought Gregory was no more than an odd-jobs man for his friend Pugh, whose Takapuna house Gregory painted.

Pugh last year told the Herald that Gregory was "a customer, a client of mine".

But a previous associate of both men, who did not want to be named, said Booth was Pugh's dogsbody, "someone who if Marty said jump, would ask 'how high"'.

Gregory risked jail by pleading guilty in 1994 to unlawfully taking Pugh's launch so a $10,000 insurance claim could be made.

Pugh mentions this in an affidavit filed in the court case with Tua, saying the insurance company wouldn't pay for damage caused when an oil seal blew while Gregory was out for an unauthorised joyride.

Pugh gave no hint in his affidavit that he was annoyed at Gregory's behaviour but he was put out that Gregory's integrity was being questioned.

"It should be noted," Pugh said, "that it was Richard Gregory who handed himself in to police to claim responsibility".

Gregory may have claimed responsibility but he didn't carry the can much.

Mick Brown, the judge who sentenced him under the name of Booth in the Auckland District Court, reportedly expressed astonishment that Booth might not be able to afford to pay reparation when he spent $200 a week on food and restaurants and $100 on marijuana.

Judge Brown told Booth that if he didn't pay he'd go to jail and sentenced him to six months jail, suspended for six months.

This sentence had the effect of requiring Booth to pay reparation for at least six months if he was to avoid jail. It appears he did this, but stopped having paid only about $3500 of total reparation of $9962.

Any reparation paid would have reduced the insurance company's bill. It appears the insurance company has had to pay most of the costs.

The Ministry of Justice revealed Gregory had paid 35 to 40 per cent and that nothing had been received since October 1998. It had been "unable to locate Mr Booth for the purposes of further enforcement action".

The ministry could start looking in Caloundra, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, where $1600 of Tuaman Inc money was sent fortnightly to a bank account in his new name of Richard Gregory.

The money was paid for three years until Tuaman Inc bank accounts were frozen after the boxer's raid on his managers' offices last July.

If Gregory's actions annoyed Pugh, it didn't stop him using the convicted criminal as a trustee in the boxing business or to front many of his own companies.

One company set up while Gregory awaited sentencing on the launch matter is listed on land information documents as the owner of a Birkenhead property of which the Herald believes Pugh is beneficial owner. It is listed on Tuaman Inc Ltd records as its first registered office, and in 1999 was described by Pugh as his home.

The property, now worth about $900,000, was bought in August 1994, only 18 months after Pugh was discharged from his bankruptcy. Ownership was put in the name of TR One Ltd of which Booth/Gregory was listed as sole director and shareholder.

Its registered office was given as a rundown inner-city council flat which Booth listed as his residential address. But the address listed for communication is Pugh's Victoria St offices, from which Pugh also ran Tua's affairs.

The Herald believes Booth has never done anything more than lend his name to Pugh for business purposes.

In October and November, before he stopped talking to the Herald, Pugh said he developed his business acumen working in supermarkets as a teenager, and by the age of 24 had developed and sold a chain of nightclubs.

Tua says Barry mentioned these nightclubs when persuading the boxer to let Pugh join the business, telling him Pugh had made millions from them at a young age.

If the nightclubs made Pugh rich, he wasn't making the money available two years later when he was called on to honour a potentially crippling personal guarantee.

It may be that approach from a creditor was a close call from which he learned a lesson. Pugh filed his own bankruptcy, and appears not to have owned assets in his own name since.

No house? He told the Herald he travelled a lot, so didn't need one.

Pugh also claimed not to have a relationship with Sports Tech, but claimed the roles of it and Gregory in the boxing business were legitimate.

He has not explained further, to Tua's chartered accountant, to the courts, or to this newspaper. Pressed by the Herald to explain, he said: "Do you want me to give my game plan away?"

Pugh told how Booth changed his name as a tribute to his brother, Gregory Booth, who committed suicide. He repeats this in his affidavit, saying it's a "sad, sad story" which is disrespected.

Gregory Booth did commit suicide. But it was in 1990. Richard Booth became Richard Gregory nine years later.

The Herald believes that because of the lapse of time, his convictions and his unpaid debts, it was convenient for him to change his name.

The Ministry of Justice wanted to find him for not serving the bulk of his sentence for unlawfully taking the launch. In March 1999, the BNZ got a judgment against him for a debt of $10,820. Before long, other debts were listed with consumer credit check company Baycorp and repo men took away his car.

Booth's father told the Herald his two sons were fond of each other, but debt "was more the reason why he did change his name".

Booth snr says he understands his son fronts companies for Pugh. And he knew about the launch business.

"I asked him what's wrong with him. You don't put yourself on the bloody line for a so-called mate."

He believes his son is gullible and that Pugh exploits that, but he indicates others considered Richard Booth or Richard Gregory to be a ratbag.

Booth snr made his low opinion of Pugh clear, and he believed that his son should not have done many of the things he has done for Pugh.

Richard Gregory's new name may have delivered a minor windfall.

The Herald has copies of documents which show he received a benefit during 2000 while working as a painter. The benefit was paid in the name of R. Booth, usually a day before wages from a painting firm went into the same account. The company confirmed it employed a Richard Gregory.

The year 2000 may have been a turning point financially for Gregory. When Sports Tech was set up later that year, Pugh added his mate's name to the Tuaman payroll.

Gregory left New Zealand owing his landlord money in March last year.

Booth snr was interested to learn that $200,000 of the boxer's money appears to have come his son's way.

"If that's the case, I hope I get a smidgen of what the bastard scrounged from me".


The timeline

May 1993: Pugh discharged from bankruptcy.

April 1994: Pugh's luxury launch damaged. Richard Booth later pleads guilty to unlawfully having possession of it at the time.

August 1994: Birkenhead house bought and put in the name of TR One, a company fronted by Booth. The Herald believes Pugh is the true owner of the property.

March 1995: Booth sentenced to six months jail, suspended, for taking the launch and causing $10,000 damage. Insurance understood to have covered bulk of cost.

March 1999: BNZ gets judgment against Booth for $10,820 debt.

June 1999: Tuaman Inc Ltd formed, with Pugh as sole director and listed as owning all shares.

Late 1999: Richard Michael Booth changes his name by deed poll to Richard Gregory.

February - May 2000: Gregory receives a benefit under the name of R. Booth while being paid wages as Richard Gregory.

April 2000: Booth replaces Pugh on board of directors of Luddite Technologies Ltd a few months before it goes under. Luddite was a joint venture with Tainui business interests developing new point of sale systems. ASB Bank loses about $200,000.

September 2000: Pugh applies for Tuaman trademarks to be owned by Sports Tech and he and Gregory set up Sports Tech.

August 2000: Pugh adds Gregory to Tuaman Inc payroll.

November 11, 2000: Tua fights champion Lennox Lewis for the world heavyweight title, earning a $6 million pay day.

July 25, 2003: Tua raids his manager's offices, removing company files.

* Email Phil Taylor