By Jeff Hampton
South Canterbury Finance could end up under foreign ownership with the Government indicating it is keen to sell the company it had to bail out for a record $1.7 billion.
The company went into receivership yesterday but still has assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
John Key said the Government wanted to sell South Canterbury, and buyers were making themselves known.
“There's no question there's interest it's just a question of what price and whether it satisfies the Government's tests,” he says.
Mr Key also put the blame for the failure fair and square on Allan Hubbard.
“Allan Hubbard was the person who ran a company that lent money to people who couldn't repay it and on that basis it went bankrupt.”
South Canterbury lost a lot in the Auckland property market; in retrospect a 2008 road trip involving Mr Hubbard and former chief executive Lachie McLeod highlights the company going off track.
Questions are also being asked about whether investors should have been told more about the company's growing problems in the last nine months.
“There could have been a loss of several hundred million dollars in value in the company without any disclosure to the investors,” says stockbroker Chris Lee.
Mr Hubbard supporters are also unhappy that Finance Minister Bill English isn't giving more detail about the rejected private bids for South Canterbury, including one Mr Hubbard put together.
“I think he's got an obligation to the taxpayer to come clean about what was on the table, why was it scuttled and who scuttled it,” says a supporter of Mr Hubbard, Paul Carruthers.
Today, Allan Hubbard requested privacy saying he still felt under siege and had done so ever since he and his wife were put in statutory management, but he says he's planning to say more in the future.
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