ANOTHER BLOW FOR HENDO

This week our mate Dave surprisingly took up an option to buy back one of the five properties he sold to the Christchurch City Council for $17 million.

Option dates for the other four properties will be coming up in the not too distant future.

Of course whether the financially besieged Hendo can actually find the money to purchase the property is another story altogether. However it'll take some three to four months for all the necessary paperwork to be done so he has squeezed out some time before he has to show us the colour of his money.

Don't hold your breath.

The fly in the ointment for Hendo is that the Christchurch City Council can withdraw from any settlement if they are not convinced that Hendo can complete the development. Of course we can fully expect Mayor Sideshow Bob to cut his mate a fair bit of slack.

Regardless, thanks to the stupidity and cronyism of Mayor Sideshow Bob and councillors like Sue Wells and Barry Corbett, the ratepayers of Christchurch are now entangled in the murky affairs of Hendo. Was this what Sue Wells had in mind when she described the bailout of Henderson as 'a very good deal.'?

However the inexorable slide of Hendo toward financial oblivion appears to be gathering pace again, despite the many and varied attempts of 'the urban visionary' to halt the landside that threatens to engulf him.

Yesterday his flagship company, Property Ventures, was put into receivership by Allied Farmers.

Property Ventures, among other things, owned Five Mile Holdings which planned to build a self -contained village near Queenstown but went into receivership in 2008 laving a big hole in the ground.

Allied Farmers, of course, took over Hanover Finance last year.

One of Hanover's loans was some $42 million to Five Mile Holdings -a loan guaranteed by Property Ventures.

According to Allied, this loan is racking up an incredible $23,000 a day in interest.

The poor people who invested their money in Hanover are trapped in a financial nightmare and tales of financial hardship have become common. Some Hanover investors have been forced to sell their homes.

True to form, Hendo is entirely unconcerned about the grief he has helped cause.

He has declared that the receivership of Property Ventures is 'a quite pointless exercise' because it owns nothing.

But Hendo's arrogance knows no bounds and he has hinted that Allied Farmers are just engaged in a PR exercise.

He told The Press: 'I guess given Allied's position right now they do need to be doing something in regard to the loan book they inherited from Hanover.'

Given the fact that he wasted some $42 million in digging a big hole near Queenstown, is it unreasonable to expect Hendo to show some contrition? Apparently it is.