Basketball: Former Breakers coach liable for $300,000 debt

Waikato businessman and former New Zealand Breakers basketball coach Jeff Green is fighting off creditors for the second time this year after a court ruling that he is liable for a $300,000 debt.

In the High Court at Hamilton, Associate Judge Graeme Lang said Green was liable for the debts of his company Waikato Tainui Investments, placed in liquidation earlier in the day owing $300,000 to ANZ National Bank.

The debt arose when the business did not pay back remaining bank mortgages on a set of sold properties.

Green said outside the court that he had not missed any payments and was not sure why the bank called in the mortgages.

He had made a personal guarantee over the mortgages and accepted that his failure to pay the $300,000 opened him to the possibility of defending another bankruptcy proceeding. "I offered them a repayment plan over 18 months, but they wanted the money now."

According to the Insolvency Service, Green was bankrupt in 1993, and discharged in 1996. In March, he successfully applied to defend a Bartercard New Zealand bankruptcy application over a $35,000 debt from his now-liquidated company WT Basketball Operations. The application will be heard next month.

- NZPA