Bridgecorp investors lose out again

The Fiji National Provident Fund is taking over the Momi Bay resort project in an attempt to claw back its $F80 million ($NZ61.3m) investment.

Fiji National Provident Fund chairman Parmesh Chand told the Fiji Times today that the fund was now exercising its right as a mortgagor.

The foreclosure appears to end any hope New Zealand investors in failed finance company Bridgecorp have of recovering $NZ106.6m the finance company's executives sank into the resort.

On most of its loans, Bridgecorp was not the first-ranking mortgagee, and returns from $32.9 million worth of Australian loans are also likely to be minimal.

Receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) initially said in their six-monthly report on Bridgecorp - which collapsed in July 2007 owing $459m to 14,360 secured debenture holders - the final payout would be between 13c and 44c in the dollar.

The largest loan the company had was to Fiji's Momi Resort, but Colin McCloy and Maurice Noone of PWC have only said they were working with the developer and financiers to try to secure funding to complete the project.