By Tony Field
Former Bridgecorp managing director Rod Petricevic has apologised to 14,500 investors, who lost millions when the company collapsed.
Petricevic has begun giving evidence in the High Court trial of himself, Robert Roest and Peter Steigrad.
All deny making untrue statements about the company’s financial health in its investment documents.
It has been four years and seven months since the company collapsed and until this morning, Petricevic had not spoken publicly about what had happened.
“I would like to take this opportunity to extend an apology to all investors for the grief and the losses that they have been conflicted with,” he told the court.
Petricevic denies any wrongdoing.
“I believe that we did everything, particularly in my instance, that could have been done to repay the investors and run the company properly.”
He told the court his role at Bridgecorp was to grow the business, but he was not in charge of the day-to-day management of the company – nor was he responsible for its finances.
Petricevic said he relied on the expertise of the people around him.
“I am not an accountant, not a lawyer, so obviously I need that backup support.”
Bridgecorp missed a series of repayments to investors in the five months before it collapsed, but Petricevic said nobody at the company told him.
“I knew nothing about missed payments.”
He said he was told of one interest payment that was late because it was due to be paid on a weekend when the banks were shut – but he denied a Crown allegation that he was a meeting where staff discussed blaming it on a computer glitch.
“Complete fiction,” he said.
Petricevic will be cross-examined tomorrow.
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