Families that have paid deposits for furniture from Nido are worried now that the company has been placed in receivership. Photo / Michael Craig
Families that have paid deposits for furniture from Nido are worried now that the company has been placed in receivership. Photo / Michael Craig
A South Auckland family got their money back after this year's border closure torpedoed a planned holiday in Thailand - but they may now have lost half of it again after the collapse of furniture giant Nido.
The Ōtāhuhu family - Mum, Dad and four children who asked not to be named - paid a $2470 deposit to Nido two months ago for a two- and three-seater couch, with the remaining $2470 due when the couch was to be delivered in 16 weeks.
They are one of several Nido customers who have contacted the Herald alarmed they may not get either their couch or their money back after the company which owns the store, Magsons Hardware Ltd, was placed into receivership today.
Receiver Conor McElhinney, of McGrathNicol, said the receivers were still assessing the numbers of deposits paid for goods that had not yet been delivered.
For the South Auckland family, it's a second setback in a year after they were hit by the border closure when the country went into Covid-19 lockdown in March.
"We had flights booked for Thailand," the father said.
"We got a refund from Singapore Airlines, no problem. That was brilliant.
"We wanted a different colour one - paid a little bit more for it," he said.
But he got worried when the construction company that built Nido's huge 2.7ha Henderson store, Vijay Holdings, went into liquidation last month.
"I thought, 'Oh, no!' My partner is pretty devastated," he said.
"I rang them when I heard the construction company was in receivership and thought, bugger this change of colour, we'll try and get something with any colour. They said there was no more stock, they were looking at January for it."
Another customer said she and her partner also paid half the price of a couch - $1300 - as a deposit, and the couch was due to arrive in January.
"We are in the process of buying our first house and excitedly, probably stupidly, found a couch at Nido that we put on order," she said.
"I just called them and they have told me that they can't release any stock and can't make changes to the orders until they get a 'revised policy' from the receivers.
"Pretty stressful when you are trying to buy your first house and could potentially have lost $1300, and we still had another $1300 more to go!"
Vinod Kumar, founder of Nido Living, raised $62 million to build and open the giant store in Henderson. Photo / Anne Gibson
Nido's collapse has also stung small investors who funded a $62 million funding arrangement to build and open the store. Two Taranaki farmers in their late 70s and mid-80s sank about $1m each into the project.
A grandfather told the Herald: "We are parents with children and grandchildren [and] invested our savings in good faith. Hard to believe that shares bought only this year are affected so quickly."
The company that appointed McGrathNicol as receivers, Central Assets Investment, is owned by more than 30 investors in Whangārei, Auckland, Edgecumbe, Whakatāne, Te Kūiti, Taupō, Taranaki, Picton, Blenheim, Canterbury and Invercargill.
McElhinney said Nido was providing information to the receivers about customers waiting for undelivered orders.
"We will contact them, but if customers haven't been contacted by the end of next week they can get in touch with us directly," he said.
The email to do so is email insolvency@mcgrathnicol.co.nz.
He said the furniture store would keep trading and would "likely start some discounting campaigns" to clear stock so that creditors could be repaid. All 100 employees are still in work.
Customers who have ordered goods may still be able to obtain those goods when they arrive from suppliers.
But cash would be used to repay preferential creditors first, then Inland Revenue, then secured creditors including Central Assets Investment, and finally unsecured creditors including customers.
