Blue Chip - the good life for some

BLUE CHIP investors owed more than $80 million they probably won't see again, are likely to choke on their cornflakes when they see the painting found in the plush Parnell, Auckland, offices once inhabited by company owners Mark Bryers and Bob Bangerter.

Words like "trust" and "responsibility" feature prominently - words that have been loudly and bitterly disputed by investors in the two months since Blue Chip collapsed.

They may also be irked to find that although Blue Chip boss Mark Bryers failed to front up to a compulsory creditors' meeting in Auckland last week, he hasn't been stinting himself on the golf course.

A member of the posh Remuera Golf Club, Bryers played at Gulf Harbour on March 16 his fifth game this year a week after it was revealed he'd spent tens of thousands of dollars at an Auckland brothel, The HQ Club in Gore St, often block-booking the venue.

That was also the weekend Blue Chip's 3000-4000 investors learned that, as unsecured creditors, they were unlikely to get anything back from the millions they'd invested in the company.

His mate Bangerter also likes a round of golf, although his handicap of 19 doesn't match Bryers' 10. Golfing records show Bangerter has played 12 times this year, most recently at Titirangi and Muriwai on March 21 and 23.

Bryers, who lives in a $3 million house in Remuera, said in February he would pledge $25m from his own property developments to repay investors. So far there have been few details of what he is planning and when. Nor have liquidators Meltzer Mason Heath an accurate fix on Bryers' debts.

Investors, meanwhile, remain in the dark about what has happened to their money. Property specialist Olly Newland, acting for a group of investors, has complained to the Commerce Commission that many investors were lured into Blue Chip and its subsidiaries on the basis of false and misleading information. Some say they were told their investments were covered by an insurance policy backed by Lloyds of London for up to $75,000. Newland says the policy "simply doesn't exist".

"There is an empire of evil here that needs to be dismantled to get to the truth," he told the Sunday Star-Times.

According to reports from the creditors' meeting held last week in Auckland for the 20 Blue Chip-related companies now in liquidation, many investors mortgaged their homes to invest in Blue Chip, including a couple who say they had $1 million invested.

- © Fairfax NZ News