KEY POINTS:
Last weekend Blue Chip co-founder Mark Bryers met a small group of investors who, like thousands of other New Zealanders, are owed money by his company.
He outlined a proposition - to buy back hotel rooms in the Gulf Harbour Lodge, owned by 32 Blue Chip investors, to complement a resort he plans to build nearby.
Bryers' sales pitch was nothing but enthusiastic - a 200-bed resort overlooking the Gulf Harbour Country Club and golf course, of which he is the sole director and one of the shareholders, with the lodge as overflow accommodation for the lucrative conference business.
In the office of Blue Chip liquidator Jeff Meltzer, the investors listened, then rejected the offer, the details of which they have kept to themselves.
It wasn't enough and they had been let down before, they said.
In January, Bryers defaulted on an agreement to begin payments to buy the rooms under one of his companies, Coltman Investments Ltd. Instead, a group of the investors visited the lodge for Easter. The idea was to take stock, have a working bee and figure out what to do. "A social event with a broom," said one.
All agree that when they signed up in 2003, usually through a Blue Chip agent introduced through a friend or church, they thought the smart black zip-up folder full of impressive-looking documents would be the end of it. Forget worrying about rates and body corporate fees, they were told. All you have to do is check the guaranteed rent payments are going into your bank accounts. And they did - until late last year.
The group compares notes. "Ours stopped in September." "Ours didn't stop until November."
These are ordinary Kiwis, middle-aged and older, some still working, some retired. None dreamed they would one day inherit a 35-room boutique lodge to run. None has hospitality experience. All are owed money - more than $500,000 collectively and the debt is mounting.
By the time they took over, Swordfish Lodge Management, which ran the lodge and whose only director was Bryers, was $2.7 million in debt. The accounts were in a mess with a substantial amount owing to Inland Revenue, and the lodge had a 75 per cent vacancy rate.
But the creditors, led by Annette Rowson, of Papamoa, approached an Auckland law firm which applied for a court-appointed administrator, a first in New Zealand since company insolvency law changed last year.
The investors were pleased to make history. The alternative would have been to appoint a liquidator and risk losing everything.
But sitting in the sun at the Gulf Harbour Country Club, a short drive from the lodge, they know they are in for a tough time. Winter is coming, maintenance costs are mounting, the lodge is rarely well-booked, they have to find new hotel managers and the kitchen is closed.
The investors are unsure who owns the kitchen, or a large conference room.
They are the subject of a dispute between Bryers and Starline, a company owned by developers Roger Coulson and Jamie Peters.
With the kitchen closed, the investors need the country club's catering services to honour a wedding booked this weekend, and for another wedding and three conferences.
They will lose even more money to honour the bookings. The deposits for the functions have long gone, and the club's catering quotes are more expensive than they budgeted for.
But, they shrug, that's life. They've just got to get on with it.
They can't believe the lodge has been running at a loss since 2005 without them knowing, propped up by Blue Sky Holdings, one of 21 Blue Chip companies in liquidation.
Rowson and her husband Kevin were among the few investors who realised they were buying a hotel room. Most of the others thought they were buying a self-contained unit which could be rented out.
Some thought they were buying homes, which the tenants could buy after three years using a "gift" from the Blue Chip company managing the property as a deposit.
They point to the stove listed in the chattels. Instead they got a hotel room with a sink, a small fridge and a kettle.
Now they've registered a new company, Gulf Harbour Investors Association Ltd, trading as Gulf Harbour Lodge.
Lodge guests have traditionally had the right to use the neighbouring club's tennis court, pool, spa and gym, and they hope that continues.
In the meantime, there is maintenance to be done, guests to attract and marketing plans to be made.
As they tell their story, they interject in short bursts. "We've come out fighting," says one. Another adds: "We're pig-headed enough to make this work."
