Bryers loses bid to beat bankruptcy

Mark Bryers maintains his only assets are his clothes and furniture and a set of golf clubs. File photo / Dean Purcell

Former Blue Chip boss Mark Bryers is now a bankrupt.

By his own estimation, the founder of the failed investment scheme owes a long list of creditors $173 million.

Lawyers representing eight of those creditors, collectively owed $85 million, lined up before Associate Judge David Robinson in the High Court at Auckland yesterday to hear the bankruptcy adjudication.

Bryers had made an eleventh hour attempt to have the proceedings adjourned by offering a proposal for repaying his debts.

But Associate Judge Robinson said Bryers had "never until this morning taken any steps to oppose the application [for bankruptcy]".

Yesterday's events were the culmination of more than a year's worth of legal action by creditors attempting to get their money back.

All the parties represented yesterday had gained summary judgments from the court ordering Bryers to pay them what he owed.

The parties included:

* Westpac, owed $11 million.

* Failed finance company Bridgecorp, owed $47.5 million.

* Property developer Consolidated Technologies, owed $18 million over a soured property deal at Gulf Harbour.

* AD102 Limited, a company owned by interests of businessman Peter Francis, owed $4.3 million over a development that was never built in Rosedale Rd, Albany.

The lead creditor in yesterday's proceedings was a company in liquidation owned by property developer Jamie Peters, Cook Nelson St Leasehold Limited, which is owed $2.2 million.

The other creditors appeared in support.

AD102's lawyer, Daniel Grove, said Bryers had only put the repayment proposal to creditors that day.

He had always been "extremely obstructive" in accepting service of documents relating to the bankruptcy proceedings.

He calculated that the offer Bryers was making to creditors equalled 0.69 of a cent in the dollar.

Bryers' lawyer Aaron Nicholls calculated that the offer actually amounted to 1.2 cents in the dollar.

"That's twice as much of nothing," Grove replied.

Grove said that a majority of creditors in number and 75 per cent of them by value had to agree to a proposal from a debtor before it could go ahead.

The creditors represented in court accounted for 49 per cent of the amount owed, and they all opposed the proposal.

In addition, Bryers had told the court that his only assets were his clothes and furniture and a set of golf clubs, and the money was being put up by a third party.

"It's impossible that this would get through," Grove said.

Nicholls said that his client was a "disliked figure" and the creditors' opposition to the repayment scheme had more to do with this than commercial logic.

He also said not all the creditors were being given a chance to comment on the proposal, including Bryers' Australian publicly listed entity Northern Crest Investments, owed $72 million.

However, Associate Judge Robinson said almost half of the creditors had indicated they would not accept the proposal, and therefore there was little point in adjourning the proceedings any further.

"All that will happen is that the adjudication will be delayed and other creditors may be put to more expense in considering a proposal that simply can't get off the ground."

He said one of the consequences of bankruptcy was to "prevent the debtor from accumulating debts in the future that can amount to anything like the amount he owes today".

Mark Bryers faces 69 criminal charges brought by the Companies Office relating to the collapse of Blue Chip.

The Serious Fraud Office is also conducting an investigation into the property group.

THE RULES

As a bankrupt, Mark Bryers will:
* Have his affairs controlled by the Official Assignee.
* Only be allowed to keep the tools of his trade, a car worth $5000 and $1000 in cash.
* Not be allowed to travel without the OA's permission.
* Not be permitted to run a business or be a director of a company.
* Have the same status as a bankrupt in Australia.