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Mark Hotchin - Source: Close Up -
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Former Hanover Finance owner Mark Hotchin says his luxury lifestyle has been "incredibly exaggerated".
Breaking his silence on TV ONE's Close Up tonight, the much pilloried financier said he was not living in the lap of luxury in Queensland.
He also said that "no executive or director of the Hanover companies ever knowingly did anything wrong".
Hotchin has been widely criticised for reportedly living it up while investors lost their savings but he said he was currently broke because his assets were frozen .
Hotchin said tonight that his palatial home on Auckland's exclusive Paritai Drive was not a "vanity project" but that it "grew over time".
There is a lot of "mixed feeling" about him and his lavish lifestyle is exaggerated, he said, adding that the main reason he does not live in New Zealand was because of his children.
Denying he has money stashed away, he said: "I can live on a $1000 a week reasonably comfortably, which is what I said to the court, if I was in my own home."
He said he understood investors were hurt, upset and bitter.
"A lot of people have lost a lot of money," he said.
Hotchin said his personal wealth was "incredibly low".
"My financial position now compared to three years ago is dramatically different."
Ahead of the live interview he claimed that Allied Farmers , which took on Hanover's debt, had wrecked it and wasted it. Tonight he said the plan had been to move from a platform that was not working, to one with Allied that was working.
Allied Farmers had not done what it said it would, Hotchin claimed. "We got sold a dream," he said. "We worked so hard to deliver a better alternative."
"What we have tried to do, and are continuing to try to do, is get the best result. Now, we thought we delivered that with the Allied deal, or helped support that deal. With the benefit of hindsight that was wrong."
He said Hanover was "a strong company...we believed we would get through".
He said he and Eric Watson had agreed to put in $76 million for shareholders and "that happened".
"The biggest thing is that I am sorry," Hotchin said to investors.
And he said the Securities Commission would have investigated Hanover regardless "as it was investigating every failed finance company".
Hotchin said early in the interview that Hanover was "built to last".
"This was never the plan we set about doing," he said. "This business was designed to succeed. We thought it would."
"It just doesn't make sense" - investor
Hotchin's apology gave little comfort to Mervyn Cotter who invested $100,000 in Hanover.
"That wasn't the face of a man who was sorry for what has happened," he said, shortly after watching the interview.
Cotter voted against the move to swap Hanover securities for shares in Allied Farmers.
"You cannot go from one sick finance company into a company that's even sicker. It just doesn't make sense," he said.
The organisation that works to help investors seek accountability said the blame game was a tactic to shift the heat away from Hotchin.
"We all saw the high profile in which they kept promoting the
company," said Gray Eatwell of Exposing Unacceptable Financial
Advice. "It was all about security and that security was not
there."
Frozen assets
The interview comes as a High Court judge is due to hand down a judgement on whether Hotchin's assets, worth millions of dollars, should remain frozen.
An order, granted to the Securities Commission in December, froze Hotchin's assets and gave him $1000 a week to live on.
Hotchin also wanted to take a $200,000 Mercedes Benz car and a $90,000 Porsche Cayenne car to Australia, but Justice Winkelmann rejected that application at a High Court hearing in December.
More than 16,000 investors lost more than $500 million they had invested in the company.
Hotchin had not previously given any substantial interviews on the collapse or the fallout from it.
Members of the media were banned earlier this week from reporting details of the court hearing to decide whether Hotchin's assets should remain frozen.
Justice Helen Winkelmann, in the High Court at Auckland on Monday, told journalists they were allowed to be present in court but could not report the details of what happened, only her final judgement.
Hanover and its associate, United Finance, froze some $554 million of investors' funds in 2008.
Investors agreed to a moratorium proposal but were later asked to swap their fixed income securities to new shares in Allied Farmers.
Allied Farmers drastically wrote down the value of the assets. Hanover and Allied have since criticised each other, alleging mismanagement of the assets.
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Add a Comment:
Post new commentmurray05 said on 2011-02-22 @ 00:16 NZDT: Report abusive post
What a shame that during the Close Up interview Sainsbury didn't suggest Hotchin get a job when he bleated $1000 isn't enough to live on. Hotchin wouldn't consider getting a real job because his life is one long holiday!!. Hotchin is an arrogant, ruthless, dishonest person without conscience, prison would bring him down to size.
Driftin said on 2011-02-18 @ 18:26 NZDT: Report abusive post
Easy to hide assetts and money that is why they operate family trusts so it cannot be touched or they put it in other family members names so it looks like they have nothing. Mark Hotchin and his finance buddies are just leeches that use other peoples money for their own greed. Sorry Mum & Dads and other investors I got my rich life syle & Fiji trip on your money now leave me alone
alfa2k99 said on 2011-02-18 @ 08:51 NZDT: Report abusive post
No one, absolutely NO one likes to loose money.Not even Mark Hotchin. I actually thought he answered the questions quite well. Yes of course the 'look' hasn't been good. Yes of course there are terrible stories as a result.I am sure that if he could, he too would like to do things differently, but that chance is shot. When the investigations are complete, nothing will change, but his name probably will not be forgotten for the next 25 years. Its a sorrow state of affairs.
NTW said on 2011-02-18 @ 07:50 NZDT: Report abusive post
Where were the tough questions, Hotchin kept saying he wasn't a beneficary of the Trust that owns his property, well who set it up and who were the Trustees's? and if he put $70m into the company where did he get that money from in the first place? Hanover? Poor media interview with Mark Salisbury too soft to ask the really tough questions. Given that Hotchin is going into a media offensive would indicate that he's merely trying to shift the blame over to Alloway and Allied, who are as bad.
dancingqueen said on 2011-02-18 @ 05:14 NZDT: Report abusive post
Sorry to say, but once again another very poor interview. One would of learnt a lot more, if Mike Hosking had been doing the interview. At the end of the day, the answer investers want, is whether they are ever going too get back there money.If there is any likelihood.