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BusinessDesk: South Canterbury Finance fraud trial adjourned until February, name suppression to continue
The South Canterbury Finance trial has been adjourned until February and the five people charged with what the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) maintains is New Zealand's biggest ever white collar crime, will keep their name suppression until then.
The five people, who didn’t appear in the Timaru District Court today, were granted a registrar’s adjournment until Feb. 13 to allow for disclosure, and Judge Joanna Maze let name suppression continue until then.
The five face 21 charges relating to fraud worth NZ$1.7 billion, including NZ$1.58 billion from the lender entering the government’s retail deposit guarantee scheme.
The SFO filed the charges in early December after a 14-month investigation.
16 Comments
More on the details of the
More on the details of the charges from the Timaru Herald:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/6260876/Details-of-SCF-trial-charg...
The charges include entering the Crown Guarantee Scheme by deception in 2008 (which cost $1.58b), omitting to disclose a related party loan of $64.185m from SCF to Southbury Group and Woolpak Holdings in the 2008/2009 prospectus, failing to disclose related party loans of $19.1m from SCF to Shark Wholesalers in the 2004/2005 prospectus, and, in 2008 and 2009, breaching the crown guarantee by lending $39m to Quadrant Holding Limited.
The media have completely
The media have completely misread/misinterpreted the charge sheets in relation to the value of some of the alleged omissions. The values are, in fact, significantly less (millions!), but this will become clear to the public in due course, as will the woeful media comprehension of this case.
I have to laugh at "entering the Crown Guarantee Scheme by deception"...just wait until you hear what the Crown's "requirements" were to enter the scheme! This too will become clear in due course.
In my opinion, it should be the Crown on trial here. Hold on to your hats folks, this could be a humdinger of a trial, and the Crown and SFO could well end up with egg on it's face!
So by far the biggest part of
So by far the biggest part of the 'supposed' fraud, was entering the Deposit Guarantee Scheme, which itself was one of this country's biggest frauds, a fraud perpetrated on New Zealand taxpayers by politicians, a mechanism and the unintended consequences of which ensured SCF would fail.
It should be the politicians and bureaucrats in the courts. Surely, they had all the relevant information to be checking on the firms entering the scheme, and they were auditing thoroughly all the information they were receiving, given the huge sums involved? How did all that supposedly fail so grandiosely? If in the private sector, heads would've certainly rolled. How come the government administrators of the Deposit Guarantee Scheme get to walk away with not only their freedom, but their careers, unscathed.
How farcical.
The sad thing is , Alan
The sad thing is , Alan Hubbard never stood a chance to save his business , and to clear his name ....
.... the moment that John Key sent his goons from the SFO in , SCF's fate was sealed . As was the taxpayers' of NZ ...
We will never know if Mr Hubbard was correct , in that he could've remedied the situation .
Gummy Bear ,you are on the
Gummy Bear ,you are on the money ,just follow it !
From what I am lead to
From what I am lead to believe, Alan Hubbard was a decent bloke that put his trust in a whole lot of Ratbag businessman that went on to let him and investors down badly.
plus he kept hand written
plus he kept hand written ledgers and opened all the mail so must have been jolly busy man
An addendum to my above
An addendum to my above post:
All the media beat-up about this being the biggest corporate fraud in history, and what we're really talking about is simply a firm entering a government scheme, into which, at the time, they were being virtually romanced by the bureaucrats because they ignorantly believed it would save the company by stopping a run of SCF's funds - that was, after all, the entire rationale of the Guarantee Scheme. (As opposed to the truth in which by the government recklessly offering risk averse investors a risk-less higher rate than bank term deposit, it destroyed more than twice the investor funds it would have done if the Guarantee Scheme had never been instituted in the first instance. Although it didn't destroy investor funds, did it. It destroyed my tax money. Yeah, there's criminality here all right.)
Politicians and bureaucrats; you wouldn't want them running your life for you.
Precisely, Tribeless. I
Precisely, Tribeless. I couldn't agree more! Well put :)
Allan Hubbard presented
Allan Hubbard presented investors in Hubbard Managed funds with a false set of accounts (2010 at least). He remained "a person of interest" right up untill his death. Perhaps he suffered from some sort of delusion in his later years?
More good news about our so
More good news about our so called repectable New Zealand business practices.
Oh well at least the FMA is there to get us to have confidence in our business people again.
Follow the MONEY Who benefit
Follow the MONEY
Who benefit with SCF going belly up .
1) Tax payer's lose ,WHO buy assets cheap ?
In principle you are
In principle you are certainly on the money
But in reality teams of 'upright' lawyers will obfuscate the paper trail to ultimate ownership.
Was there a relationship
Was there a relationship between the PM letting loose the SFO dogs onto a good man (subverted by young corporate/banker types) and a major earthquake/s in a nearby City?
Considering the huge fraud, I
Considering the huge fraud, I guess they have never expected to get caught, the business market will be a safer place without them. I'm sure there are others out there doing the same, finance fraud could be very tempting to certain people and if the profits are high enough they will take a chance on it. I have always hated to associate myself with such people, there are many legal ways to increase your business profits - all you really need is a good bookkeeper. The bookkeeping Tucson services I use never let me down when it comes to administrating my finances, I always get the best results.
Follow the money trial
Follow the money trial alright, all the way to the money masters;
Little wonder Bill English does not want an inquiry into the handling of South Canterbury Finance!
I have studied the machinations of the financial elite of this nation for over a decade now yet still have occassions where what I find just staggers me. Tonight was one of them.
Rearching past articles from former New Zealand Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash I spotted Sandy Maier of South Canterbury Finance imfamy as being former Chief Executive of Citibanks New Zealand operations.
I have little time before having to get to sleep for work, but I am sure any half intelligent person can follow just how far the rabbit hole goes;
1( see pg 2 of this RBNZ Don Brash document re insolvency of state owned Development Finance Corporation " After considering all the options, the Reserve Bank decided to appoint two statuary managers drawn from a large chartered accountancy firm. At the end of their term in April 1990, Mr Sandy Maier, former Chief Executive of Citibanks New Zealand operations, took over as statuory manager."
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/bulletin/1987_1991/1991mar54_1brash05mar.pdf
2( Former South Canterbury Finance chief executive Sandy Maier was offered a bonus of $5 million if he saved the company, on top of his $1m salary.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/6250148/Maier-offered-5m-bonus-if-SCF-saved
3( Sandy has worked in international commercial and investment banking with Citicorp/Citibank for 15 years. He has held various management positions in the Caribbean, South America and Australasia, including as CEO of Citicorp/Citibank New Zealand.
http://www.pfam.co.nz/people/sandy.html
4( South Canterbury Finance chief executive Sandy Maier has taken a new appointment on the board of Ngāi Tahu Holdings Corporation.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/maier-strengthens-ngai-tahu-board-127409
5( "The Treasury, charged with overseeing the retail deposit guarantee scheme that will end up costing taxpayers up to $1.1 billion, looked on passively as finance companies used the guarantee to hoover up investor funds and ramp up lending.
That’s the conclusion of the Office of the Auditor General into Treasury’s handling of the scheme, which posed the question why there is no evidence the department asked itself if it could have taken a hands on approach to the scheme from its inception in 2008."
http://m.nbr.co.nz/article/deposit-guarantee-spurred-flurry-finance-company-activity-ck-114881
6( "Finance Minister Bill English has rebuffed a call by Labour for a commission of inquiry into the handling of the South Canterbury Finance (SCF) bailout."
http://www.odt.co.nz/125517/english-rebuffs-call-commission-inquiry-scf