Reid bankrupt for a second time

A prominent Christchurch businessman who was bankrupted after the sharemarket crash of the late 1980s is bankrupt again.

Donald John Stewart Reid, in his early 70s, was declared bankrupt in the High Court in Christchurch yesterday, on a petition by the NZ Guardian Trust over a debt of more than $5 million.

He was previously bankrupted in 1990 with $40m of debts against his name.

Reid has recently been associated with the five-star Huntley House accommodation complex in Yaldhurst Rd which was owned by Reid's company Huntley House Management Ltd.

ASB bank appointed receivers to the company in November 2008 after the company defaulted on a $5m loan.

The complex was sold last year to Matangi Properties Ltd which is directed by Terence Pratley and Amanda Hudson, of Hamilton.

Another of Reid's companies, Bob's Cove, was placed in receivership in June last year with more than $15m of debt, mainly to Strategic Nominees Ltd and NZ Guardian Trust Ltd.

A previous director of the company was Robert Daniel McEwan who was bankrupted in February last year.

The company, which was developing a 94-lot subdivision on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, near Queenstown, has 33 investors. Reid held the majority shareholding.

Reid has an extensive background in property development both in Canterbury and Central Otago.

His old money connections stem from his grandfather, who was the major shareholder in successful Otago stock and station firm Reid Farmers.

Reid's first property developments were around Queenstown in the mid-60s and mostly successful but his career has been a chequered one.

He was a director during the early 70s of high-profile Christchurch property investment company Pacific Syndicates but resigned shortly before its highly public collapse in 1977.

Another of his property development companies, Reid Developments Ltd, was wound up in 1980 owing $1.1m.

His previous bankruptcy was caused mainly by the failure in 1989 of two grandiose development projects he promoted and directed.

A resort project complete with an international hotel and 18-hole golf course on part of the former Walter Peak Station on Lake Wakatipu was the first of the two to collapse, owing $27m to the Bank of New Zealand and nearly $700,000 to unsecured creditors.

That collapse was followed soon afterwards by another at Castle Hill where a further village resort, for which Reid had proposed an airstrip, an international-class 18-hole golf course, and a monorail, ran aground owing about $8m.

In 1991 a project involving condominiums at Te Mahia in Kenepuru Sound, Marlborough, ended in liquidation owing $500,000.

Over the last decade Reid has been involved in property developments in the Gibbston Valley, near Queenstown and in Hanmer.

Reid could not be contacted yesterday.

- © Fairfax NZ News