No error, say statutory managers

Press release

September 10, 2011

No error, say statutory managers

The statutory managers for Mr and Mrs Hubbard have taken issue with allegations that they have inadvertently transferred share investments worth $60 million from Aorangi Securities Ltd to Mr and Mrs Hubbard.

The statutory managers said that Mr Hubbard said he originally intended for these shares to be owned by Aorangi and that he had taken some steps to achieve that.

“Subsequently, Mr Hubbard purported to transfer the shares still recorded as owned by Mrs Hubbard and himself to a number of trusts he had established. The trusts did not pay for the shares and as far as we can see they had no ability to do so.”

The statutory managers say the background to the ownership of the shares was detailed in their June 2011 report to the Aorangi investors.

“As we have reported previously, in the months prior to our appointment as statutory managers, Mr & Mrs Hubbard arranged to transfer shares and partnership interests in a number of businesses that were held in their personal names ("the Hubbard Interests") to charitable trusts established by Mr Hubbard.

“At the same time as the transfers were proposed, the charitable trusts purported to grant Aorangi security over the Hubbard Interests. The total value involved is approximately $60 million.

“Mr Hubbard says this was done to give Aorangi security over valuable assets which could be used to meet the amounts due to the Aorangi investors

“We have been progressively reversing the transfer of the shares from the charitable trusts back to Mr & Mrs Hubbard. This is a necessary step while we attempt to ascertain whether the shares were held by Mr & Mrs Hubbard in trust for Aorangi, or for their own benefit.

“We believe the transfers to the trusts to be of no effect and we’ve been unwinding them back to the nominal ownership of Mr and Mrs Hubbard which was where they were before the trusts were established

“Amongst other issues, a problem is that a number of the shares were not capable of being transferred by Mr and Mrs Hubbard as the other shareholders in those companies needed to approve the transfer and they hadn’t done so. Indeed some of the other shareholders had commenced steps to reverse the transfers.”

The statutory managers say they will continue their efforts to have these assets available to Aorangi investors, but there are some competing claims against these.
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