Several companies under the umbrella of property developer Du Val Group have been placed in interim receivership by the High Court.
The move was made at the request of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA).
The interim receivership relates to Du Val Capital Partners Ltd, along with what the FMA describes as "a number of entities within the Du Val Group."
Du Val Capital Partners is a 100% subsidiary of Du Val Group NZ Ltd.
Du Val is a residential property developer that sources funds from investors that meet the "wholesale investor" guidelines.
The FMA says it understands there are approximately 120 investors in various Du Val entities.
John Fisk, Stephen White and Lara Bennet of PwC NZ have been appointed interim receivers.
The FMA says interim receivers are generally appointed to seek clarity around the financial position of a company or group of companies.
As well as placing the various Du Val entities into interim receivership, the High Court also approved the FMA's request for asset preservation orders, which the FMA said were to support what it described as an active investigation into Du Val Group.
In March this year the FMA issued a formal warning to Du Val Capital Partners as the general partner of the Du Val Mortgage Fund Limited Partnership, regarding a potential breach of the Financial Markets Conduct Act relating to misleading or deceptive conduct that was likely to mislead or deceive investors.
Interim receivership orders were also made in respect of Kenyon and Charlotte Clarke.
According to Companies Office records, John Kenyon Clarke is a director of Du Val Group NZ Ltd.
Du Val Group NZ Ltd is jointly owned by Charlotte Marie Clarke and Karapiro Corporate Trustees Ltd, which is in turn jointly owned by Charlotte Marie Clarke and John Kenyon Clarke.
45 Comments
About 5 years ago I noticed a new Rolls Royce with a 'Du Val' number plate and thought, they'll be bust once this boom runs its course. Sure enough. It's never wise to be spending your investors profits in advance.
I'm sure Kenyon's taken care of his finances. Good luck unravelling it all.
Just hope that the naive people who parked their money with this outfit are not too badly affected:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/fma-gets-court-to-put-du-val-group-…
Really? A fool and their money are easily parted.
All your due diligence had to be was to spend 5 seconds googling images of these 2 charlatans (I think that's acceptable lol) and any sane person would have walked away. Same with the other two with boats and planes, walk away.
To be fair the directors had a history of failure and their business model was always going to fail.
The ChCh based building companies that are funded by wholesale investors, are actually financially stronger than most banks, if you did your research!
They operate totally differently to Du Val!
What took so long?
This bunch were on the ropes for ages and everyone just stood there, mouth open waving their arms and muttering under their breaths.
This will be one of the biggest crashes in years and will rattle the housing market to the core.
Pity the poor subcontractors who will stand to lose everything.
It's belief in Magic that kept it going for so long.
The magical, Guaranteed Capital Gains that are the divinely ordained right of the New Zealand Residential Property Market.
No need to worry about tiresome things like Return on Asset; Alternative Application of Funds or Net Returns after Costs. Just wait for the fairies to wave their interest rate wand, and all will be well.
I believe the owner was posting videos like this after having frozen investors funds (remember 10% returns on money backing a development??)
Definitely risk of big downstream impacts.
One of my clients, for example, supplies a certain type of product into Du Val projects (although they had pulled back in recent months due to slow payment and general 'brand perception' issues). I won't say what it is in case I risk doxxing them or myself.
However, I know they have a receivable still outstanding that definitely won't be getting paid.
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