Alpine Drinks bottled water company unlikely to be able to pay $800,000 debt

The Awatoto site of Alpine Drinks, established in 2018 but placed in liquidation in July 2024. Some creditors have not gone ahead with claims, with the amount claimed according to the latest report being about $800,000. Photo / Doug Laing

A large number of creditors of former Hawke’s Bay-based Alpine Drinks Ltd, put into liquidation owing more than $2.5 million, have not gone ahead with claims.

The amount the company now owes has been cut by two-thirds to just $800,000, but a second report into it notes this is unlikely to be paid.

The details are contained in the latest report from liquidator Simon Dalton, of Auckland insolvency experts Gerry Rea Partners, who also says advice last year that the director was obtaining third-party investor support to meet all commitments and bring the company out of liquidation has not been realised.

“This did not occur, and no evidence was given to the liquidators that sufficient funds were being held in any trust for such purpose,” he said in the six-month report to creditors and shareholders, issued on Thursday.

In the initial report last August he listed more than 50 creditors of the company which established in 2018 on a seafront site beside State Highway 51 at Awatoto.

Its owner at the time had plans for an upper-end drinks operation utilising a pre-existing water resource consent for the taking of water from a bore.

The company was placed in liquidation by the High Court last July, and, although the application was lodged by a company owed just $5100, the liquidator said in his first report unsecured creditors were owed $2,437,334 and secured creditors $246,581.

In the latest report he said many creditors had not gone through with claims, with $787,395 claimed by 27 unsecured creditors.

Proof of debt came from four secured creditors collectively owed $252,783, but two chose to realise property subject to their security, and at the time of the report there were six preferential creditors with total debt of $47,395.

While company director (Auckland businessman Arajan Odedra) had not fulfilled his intentions, the “quantum of creditor claims was less than anticipated”, Dalton said.

There had been an auction of assets (with proceeds still to be realised), some creditors had repossessed vehicles over which they had “valid security” and there had been a mortgagee property sale, but Dalton said: “Unfortunately there are insufficient funds to enable a distribution to unsecured creditors.”

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has almost 52 years of journalism experience, more than 41 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.