SFO seeks information from Hotchin

Friday 21st January 2011 1 Comment

Hanover Finance founder Mark Hotchin was served with papers requesting information by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) when he visited New Zealand last week.

Hotchin's New Zealand assets were frozen last year when the Securities Commission had an order granted by the High Court in Auckland and a commission investigation into Hanover is continuing. Also last year the SFO said its investigation of Hanover had found that reasonable grounds existed to believe that fraud may have been committed.

Hanover and its associate, United Finance, froze some $554 million of investors' funds in 2008. Investors agreed to a moratorium but later voted to swap their fixed income securities for new shares in Allied Farmers, which have since fallen sharply in value.

National Business Review reported that the serving of papers was a routine part of the SFO investigation and that the Customs Service altered the SFO to Hotchin's arrival.

Businessday reported that Hotchin is one of 30 to 40 people who have been asked to help the SFO in its investigation.

Hotchin has been living on the Gold Coast in Australia. He is challenging a living allowance of $1000 a week related to the freezing of his assets, arguing it is not enough.

NZPA

Comments from our readers

On 22 January 2011 at 1:46 pm peter burn said:

this investigation has taken far too long to get underway . It is really quite simple. Where has all the money gone ??