New call for action on Blue Chip

The barrister acting for about 300 clients of Blue Chip is renewing calls for the failed property investor to be put under statutory management so a "coordinated investigation" can be conducted into the collapse.

But while that is going on, the former Blue Chip parent company has been touting for business from Australian investors, with a proposition that looks similar to that previously sold to clients by Blue Chip in New Zealand.

Auckland barrister Paul Dale wrote to Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel yesterday, asking her to rethink her rejection of statutory management.

About 3000 Kiwi investors are owed about $84 million through the collapse of 21 Blue Chip-related companies.

The Blue Chip business is the subject of Serious Fraud Office and Commerce Commission inquiries.

Mr Dale said that the Blue Chip affairs were extraordinarily complex.

"I understand why statutory management may not always be appropriate, but I suspect this case is, and I'm just really asking the minister to have another think about it.

"Some real money needs to be spent on this, and people at the moment are struggling. Someone has to round everything up."

Meanwhile, the former Blue Chip Financial Solutions - renamed Northern Crest - has been making good on promises made a month ago to trade on in Australia by establishing a website under the name Barkley Walsh and offering Australian investors an investment scheme that appears to be very similar to that previously offered under the Blue Chip name.

"It just seems to me rather frightening that all of this may happen again in Australia. Because the losses and the impact on the public have been just extraordinary."

After media publicity about the website in New Zealand yesterday, the site could not be accessed yesterday afternoon.

But it was not clear whether that was a temporary problem or if the site had been removed.

Northern Crest chairman Julian Gosse could not be contacted for comment yesterday. A mobile phone number previously given on Blue Chip media releases by the company's founder Mark Bryers was giving a "number inactive" message yesterday.

The liquidator of the 21 failed companies linked to Blue Chip, Jeff Meltzer of Meltzer Mason Heath, said yesterday that investigations into the collapse of the companies were continuing.

"It's all in the very early stages. We are working our way through what is a fairly complex investigation."

- © Fairfax NZ News