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The company that owns the shut-down Gulf Harbour Country Club narrowly avoided being placed into liquidation by the Auckland High Court on May 17, after an eleventh-hour payment of a relatively small debt owed to one of its many creditors.
The application to have Long River Investments Limited (LRI) liquidated was brought by Inovagen, which operated the Ferntinental Café at the club, and was claiming between $20,000 and $25,000.
Associate Judge Gardiner said she had received a memo from Inovagen’s legal team informing the court that LRI had paid the debt and the plaintiff’s costs. On that basis, she discontinued the proceeding.
The day before, the court had agreed to give LRI a last 24-hour window to pay the money after LRI’s lawyer, Patrick Mulligan, told the court that since an earlier adjournment, on April 24, the shareholders had been negotiating with funders.
He said money to cover the debt, secured from a funder in Connecticut in the US, had arrived in the country, according to emails received that morning and he was awaiting confirmation of that.
Mulligan said that the debt was “relatively small” when viewed against the fact that LRI’s “prime asset is a property in Gulf Harbour with lending in relation to that of many millions of dollars”.
Associate Judge Gardiner said LRI did not seem to be taking the matter seriously, noting that it had had time since the April 24 adjournment to arrange for the relatively minor sum to be paid. She said if the debt was not paid by the May 17 hearing, LRI should expect to be liquidated.
Inovagen’s lawyer, Thomas Ashley, said the solvency of LRI “would seem to be in doubt if it’s that difficult to find $20,000 against a $50 million property”.
The abrupt shutdown of the golf course in July 2023 affected club members, staff, suppliers and other creditors. Although Inovagen’s debt has now been settled, numerous other claimants and potential claimants are waiting in the wings.
Hibiscus Matters invited comment after the court order from LRI director Wayne Bailey, but no response was received by press time.
