Ebert creditors get chance to roll liquidators
A campaign to change the liquidator of failed company Ebert Construction will have its opportunity next week.
Ebert’s liquidators, David Ruscoe and Timothy Downes of Grant Thornton, have called an official creditors’ meeting for 2pm on November 13, in Auckland.
Ebert went into receivership in August owing about $45 million, nearly $34m of which was to unsecured creditors – most of which is unlikely to be repaid, according to the receivers, PWC.
There are 1000 creditors on the liquidators’ mailing list. Ruscoe said he was dealing with more than 200 claims, ‘‘and everyday [we] continue to receive more’’.
One of the items on the agenda will be a vote to keep or replace Grant Thornton as liquidator.
Tempest Litigation Funders has been holding informal creditor meetings as part of a campaign to replace the liquidators, chiefly because Grant Thornton was appointed by Ebert’s shareholders.
Tempest director Damien Grant has suggested BDO, Mainzeal’s liquidator, take over the investigation because it had been courageous enough to take Mainzeal’s directors to court.
Ruscoe said, as liquidator, he would continue to ask questions about the company’s relationship with related parties, including: the structure and rents charged on a plant Ebert leased from Wakefield Plant, a company linked to managing director Kelvin Hale; and the contractual amount paid by Habia – a company directed by Hale and company founder Dennis Ebert – to Ebert for building 77 Abel Smith St in Wellington.
Ruscoe said Grant Thornton would also investigate the process Kelvin Hale followed in commissioning Ebert to help with his own house in Lowry Bay.
Ruscoe is also looking into whether any intellectual property was transferred to FP Contractors, a company that picked up Ebert’s dairy factory work and was formed by ex-ebert staff.
Ruscoe will also inquire into the $3.5m cash advance Hale made to Ebert shortly before it collapsed in July, making him a secured creditor.
‘‘We understand the advance was meant to be replaced by shareholder equity at a later date and we will investigate the validity of the GSA [general security agreement] granted,’’ he said.