Hotchin's NZ assets frozen by court

Wednesday 15th December 2010 5 Comments

The New Zealand assets of former Hanover Finance director Mark Hotchin have been frozen by a court order, the Securities Commission says.

The commission applied for the order and the High Court granted the application without notice to Mr Hotchin on December 10.

Mr Hotchin intends to apply to revoke these orders and a hearing relating to this is expected in February.

The commission said it wanted to freeze sufficient property and assets to meet any civil claims that may be brought by investors.

A commission investigation into Hanover has not concluded. The move to freeze assets was in no way indicative of civil or criminal liability, it said.

"The commission decided to take this action against Mr Hotchin after deciding it was in the public interest to do so, enabling us to preserve assets from being sold or transferred," said commission chairwoman Jane Diplock.

Last month the Serious Fraud Office said its investigation of Hanover had found that reasonable grounds exist to believe that fraud may have been committed.

Hanover Finance and its associate, United Finance, froze some $554 million of investors' funds in 2008. Investors agreed to a moratorium proposal but were later asked to swap their fixed income securities to new shares in Allied Farmers.

The assets of the finance company, founded by Mr Hotchin and Eric Watson, were sold to Allied Farmers last year but the value of the assets has been drastically written down.

Hanover and Allied have been criticising each other over asset "mismanagement" and the Securities Commission has said it would meet before Christmas to decide whether criminal charges would be laid against Hanover Finance.

NZPA

Comments from our readers

On 16 December 2010 at 7:49 am Bob said:

If Hotchin had any decency he would voluntarily offer those assets to the investors who lost life savings in Hanover.

On 16 December 2010 at 9:38 am Viv said:

People like these leechs who have been involved in the failed Finance Companies do not possess any decency. They live off other people's misery.

On 16 December 2010 at 10:15 am margaret said:

well done to the powers that be for freezing the assets. Hanover have caused hard working trusting kiwi's to loose their savings and put so many under great stress. Let Hotchin have a dose of his own medicine!! but no doubt he will have other resources hidden away to buy his christmas presents with!!

On 21 December 2010 at 10:08 am Wayne said:

Great to see Hotchin feeling less than comfortable with all this bad PR.

On 21 December 2010 at 10:24 pm Steve Gardner said:

Hotchin would now be the most hated person in NZ. Can't say I'm sorry about that. May justice get dished out to the others who were in it with him as well