Judge’s Chch office closed by receivers

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 26

Judge’s Chch office closed by receivers

The receivers have closed the Christchurch head office of Judge Corporation, the investment firm launched by Mr Bruce Judge in 1986.

One of the receivers, Mr Alan Isaac, of Peat Marwick’s Wellington office, said last evening that Judge Corporation’s records were being moved to Wellington.

The company’s head office in Christchurch had been closed and two staff had lost their jobs, he said.

The Christchurch-based investment group was put in receivership by the Bank of New Zealand and NZI Securities, as debenture holders, on Tuesday.

The receivers were now making the usual statutory moves required in receiverships and also working to protect assets. Although a number of assets had been realised in the last 12 months, Judge Corporation still had assets remaining.

These included some property, but the main asset was the corporation’s 16.6 per cent stake in Kupe Group, he said. “It was the intention of the receivers to realise the assets as if it was a liquidation.” Efforts were still being made to sell the Kupe holding, Mr Isaac said. The amounted owed to the debenture holders has not been disclosed. It was difficult to see a future use for the Judge Corporation shell. Although he would not comment on the size of debentures written by the BNZ and NZI, he said there would be a shortfall in repayments. Asset sales had allowed the debentures to be reduced. It is extremely unlikely unsecured creditors and Judge Corporation’s several thousand shareholders will get anything from the receivership.

Judge Corporation’s 50c ordinary shares hit a high of 980 c three days after

listing in November, 1986, but gradually lost ground in 1987, particularly when it became clear that share deals involving Judge, Renouf Corporation, Kupe Group, Euro-National Corporation, and Ariadne Australia, another investment company run by Mr Judge, had run into serious complications. Three days before the October, 1987, sharemarket crash, Judge Corporation reported a $102.8M profit and an annual dividend rate of 17.5 c a share. It was the last profit announcement that shareholders and the Stock Exchange received from Judge. After the crash Judge’s shares fell from 360 c to 110 c in two weeks, and at the company’s first, and probably only, annual meeting in November, Mr Judge told shareholders that a task force had been appointed to restructure and that a take-over offer for the remaining Kupe Group shares would not

proceed. By this time the shares were selling at 95c and the opening price for 1988 was 12c.

On March 22, Judge Corporation was suspended from trading on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. Judge shares were selling for 7c at the time.

On August 3, the Stock Exchange set Judge Corporation a deadline of September 30 to produce its annual accounts for the year ended June 30. The corporation was granted an extension to October 20, but when representatives of the company told the Stock Exchange that this deadline could not be met, Judge’s shares were removed from the list.

As reported yesterday, all of Judge Corporation’s directors have resigned. It is also likely that the annual meeting set for December 21 and publication of the annual accounts to June 30 will be cancelled.