Credit where credit is due.

Like many other mainstream media outlets the Christchurch Press has been guilty of giving right wing ‘libertarian’ and high profile property developer Dave Henderson a whole load of free publicity. It’s been a PR bonanza for Henderson these past few years, cultimating with the release of his movie We’re To Help last year.

The Press though, to its credit, is doggedly pursuing Henderson as his Property Ventures business ‘empire’ teeters on the brink of collapse.

Today it has reported that the mystery call it received that cancelled two public notices advertising liquidation action against two of Henderson's companies appears to have originated from the office of Henderson’s company, Property Ventures.

On Tuesday last week, Smith Crane and Construction's lawyers, instructed The Press to run public notices advertising a High Court liquidation application against Property Ventures and Five Mile Holdings.

Later that same day a call from to the classified sales section instructed the same notices to be pulled.

Henderson operates on the principal that ‘attack is the best form of defence’ and he told the newspaper that the allegation was "scurrilous and outrageous and incredibly stupid".

Tim Smith of Smith Crane and Construction told TV 1 News "We've been trying hard to work with both Property Ventures and Five Mile Holding to try and get the thing settled, but we've been backed into a corner where we've just got no option,"

He went on to say that over the past six months ‘there have just been so many promises made and broken’

True to form though, Henderson denies he’s at fault. Instead he claims that – contrary to what Smith Crane say – the ‘matter has been settled’ and that some ‘things were just being made up.’

Anyone who knows anything about Henderson we’ll also be familiar with his well worm tactic of denying everything. It’s always someone else’s fault.

It’s also worth noting that Hanover Finance is the major financier for Henderson’s Five Mile development near the Queenstown airport.

Hanover Chief Executive Bruce Gordon has been quoted as saying that Hanover had various options to protect its interests, including appointing its own receiver to the Five Mile project.

Last month Dave Henderson was a guest speaker at ‘Thrive Mainland’, a business event organised by the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce – an organisation that has often praised him in the past.

Henderson spoke on the topic ‘Overcoming Challenges, No Matter How Big’....

3 comments:

  1. damn shame, davey boy! amazing that you got away with your latest scam for so long - the losers of course being the small investors in hanover and dominion. Why do i get the feeling that dave will crawl out of this latest in his string of debacles with just enough ongoing cashflow to keep his own lifestyle intact, while everbody else can go whistle for their money? full marks, indeed, to the press, who have pumped his ego for months while i'm sure they knew all along that the time would come when the higher they had pumped him, the greater would be his fall! the people who really run the city of christchurch (tame ex-mayors aside) know davey from way back, and none of this will be a surprise to any of them.

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  2. Nefarious, you are one strange fish.

    25 finance companies have folded in the past 24 month. There will be more that fold in the future, however, you want to lay blame for it all at the feet of Dave Henderson?

    Dominion is on record as naming it's four biggest loans that caused it difficulty. All finance companies are supposed to be structured so that one or more loans can't thake them down.

    There are plenty of developers in trouble right now and plenty of finance companies (those that are left). Some finance companies have been taken down by developers and some taken down by finance companies.

    But hey, pin it on Henderson if it suits your beef. I'm sure has secretly behind the killing off of St Laurence, Dorchester, Bridgecorp, PFG, Dominion, Lombard and a slew of others.

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  3. mr, you are spectacularly thick. I really don't give a toss how many speculators and small or large investors take a bath in this present re-enactment of 1989. my single point is that only pure greed prompts otherwise intelligent people to hitch their wagon to the quest for fame and riches of an ego-driven sociopath like dave henderson. got it? good :)

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