Winding up call for Equiticorp

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 24

Winding up call for Equiticorp

PA Auckland British administrators of Equiticorp International, parent of the Equiticorp group, have called an extraordinary meeting of shareholders. Set for July 11 in Auckland, the meeting is for the administrators to seek permission to voluntarily wind-up the company. The group was forced to call in liquidators in January when debts became too difficult to service.

Since then, various parts of the company have been put in the hands of administrators, receivers arid, in New Zealand, statutory managers, to extract what they could for creditors, debenture-holders and shareholders.

The directors of the collapsed group have been invited to the meeting and some have indicated they would attend.

It was not known if Mr Allan Hawkins, the former chairman and founder of the group, would be there.

It could be the last chance shareholders have to confront the former directors.

The British administrators of the parent company, Peat Marwick McLintock, of London, will send a representative.

Mr Fred Watson, the spokesman for the New Zealand statutory managers, said the meeting would be conducted under British law and although his team was assisting its British colleagues, it had nothing officially to do with the local managers.

Under British law, the administrators have two avenues in seeking the windup, either through the courts or by shareholder approval. The meeting was arranged because the court process was expensive in Britain,' Mr Watson said.

Shareholders would be asked to approve the voluntary winding-up of the company and to appoint two Peat Marwick McLintock partners to handle the task.

The meeting would -be given evidence seeking to prove that the company could not continue business because of its liabilities and that the best course would be to wind it up.