Former Hanover co-owners return for slice of paradise

Former Hanover co-owners Mark Hotchin and Eric Watson have acquired a slice of Fiji paradise, buying a small share in a property on the exclusive Vomo Island north of Nadi.

Companies Office records show the duo acquired an eight per cent stake in Fiji Holiday Corporation from PGC managing director George Kerr on December 20.

A spokesman for Kerr confirmed the company owns property on Vomo.

“It’s a small company that owns a small amount of property on Vomo,” he said.

The shares are jointly held by Hotchin and Elizabeth Equities, one of Watson’s investment vehicles.

Fiji Holiday Corporation was registered in Fiji for tax purposes in April 2006.

The company’s main shareholders are South Island businessman Graham Wilkinson and interests associated with Kenneth Cummings.

Kerr’s Galt Nominees still holds a 28.33 per cent shareholding, according to company records.

Wilkinson has been involved in various hospitality properties in New Zealand and overseas. He was unavailable for comment. Hotchin and Watson could not be reached for comment.

The pair owned the Hanover group of finance companies that froze investor funds in 2008 during the global financial crisis.

Hotchin was heavily criticised for having his 50th birthday party at Vomo’s luxurious resort just days before debenture holders voted in support of an ill-fated restructuring plan designed to return their principal without interest over five years.

However, the plan failed and Hanover’s property loan assets were later sold to Allied Farmers in 2010.

Investors owed $554m suffered massive losses when Allied Farmers was unable to recover the loans on property assets Hanover lent to.

Hotchin has since built up a sizeable property portfolio with real estate stretching from Waiheke Island to Arrowtown in Central Otago.

Watson, meanwhile, appears in financial trouble following a legal stoush with Sir Owen Glenn. Last month a court heard he didn’t have the assets to pay Glenn $54m that an English judge ordered him to hand over.

That was after the High Court in England and Wales ruled Watson had engaged in “deliberate deception” when he and Glenn set up a joint venture investment company, in which the latter ploughed about $250m into.