New Zealand's High Court placed 23 more companies tied to Bernard Whimp into liquidation, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) said today (Monday). The order covers what was left of his Chance Voight group, run from Rangiora, north of Christchurch.
The court made the order on September 10. The list runs to 21 companies and two limited partnerships, among them Hanmer Equities Limited, the subsidiary named alongside Whimp in the asset preservation orders granted last December, when the FMA first moved against the group.
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John Fisk, Lara Bennett and Malcolm Hollis, appointed interim liquidators over six Chance Voight entities in December, are now liquidators of every company in the group.
The Press reported in July, citing the FMA, that the companies had received about NZ$45 million (about $26 million) from investors. An interim liquidators' report put the group's net asset position at close to negative NZ$12 million, RNZ reported from the June hearing.
Court Found New Money Was Paying Existing Investors
The court split the 23 entities in two. Those with bank accounts were found insolvent, unable to pay debts as they fell due.
The rest, which had no bank accounts, went into liquidation on just and equitable grounds, because treating them as separate from the group was artificial and because one process is more efficient, the FMA said.
At the June 29 hearing on the first six companies, FMA counsel Richard May told the court that records reviewed by the interim liquidators showed interest payments, and in some cases redemptions, had been funded mainly from new investor money.
Whimp did not attend that hearing and had no lawyer there, and his last-minute application to delay it was declined. Associate Judge Lester released his decision on July 23.
"The judgment recognises that the active entities are insolvent," said Margot Gatland, head of enforcement at New Zealand's FMA. She said one process protects investors and creditors. The FMA's investigation into the group and associated parties is continuing.
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A Director New Zealand Regulators Have Dealt With Before
Whimp was banned from managing or directing companies for five years from April 2007 under the Companies Act. Companies Office records list convictions under that act for failing to comply with a liquidator's notice and for removing records.
The same records list a burglary conviction, for which he was sentenced to 250 hours of community service.
While the ban ran, he used limited partnerships, which it did not cover, to make unsolicited offers for shares held by retail investors in Vector, Contact Energy, TrustPower, Fletcher Building, Guinness Peat Group and DNZ Property Fund.
Several of the March 2011 offers looked generous but spread payment over ten years, which cut what they were worth. The Securities Commission, the FMA's predecessor, ordered the partnerships to tell every shareholder who had received one that the original statement was misleading.
Whimp has rejected the regulator's case throughout. In an email to investors after the December action he denied the companies were insolvent and said the funds held about NZ$50 million in deposits.
He also said the funds had never missed a quarterly interest or principal payment and that no investor had complained to the FMA in six years. "FMA did not issue Chance Voight funds with any warnings or orders ...," he wrote.
Liquidation Instead of a License Case
The regulator did not go after Chance Voight through license conditions. It asked the court to wind the companies up on insolvency grounds, on Companies Act breaches and on the just and equitable test.
Inland Revenue had already won a liquidation order over CVI Management Services LP in July. That partnership is named again in Thursday's judgment.
The FMA has used court proceedings in other cases. It canceled Rockfort Markets' derivatives issuer license in July 2024 after Justice Edwards dismissed Rockfort's appeal, with the court finding breaches of at least eight license conditions.
In 2020 it suspended the license of EncoreFX's New Zealand arm after the parent company went into administration in Canada, leaving the local book to be closed out under supervision.
The asset preservation orders from December are still running. They stop Whimp from moving assets overseas, though the FMA said at the time that they do not otherwise restrict his use of his personal assets.
