GUEST POST: Deborah Hill Cone: NZ - crazy people, crazy place

A brilliant piece of writing in the NZ Herald this morning from the woman who initially exposed the inadequacies of Mark Hotchin and Eric Watson's collapsed Hanover Group.

Deborah Hill Cone takes an acerbic look at finance company collapses, principally Allan Hubbard's failed empire and like everyone else is just about full to the eyeballs with the whole shooting match.

Too much more and we all just might go nuts!

Heerrres Debs!

Allan Hubbard!!! Give the poor guy a break!! Down boy!! Call off your slavering media hounds!! He's just a dear old granddaddy on dialysis who never hurt a fly with his humble house and humble cup of tea and humble shortbread just trying to give humble hard working moms and pops a wee hand up and now you're a-hounding and a-hauling the ol' feller into an early grave. Steady on vicar!! Old Mother Hubbard is Vee-Dub-tastic. Gets my motor running. He can be my hubby anytime!! Geddit!!

For Crying Out Loud!!! Allan Hubbard: arenchasickof him! Who cares if he is a frail 83-year-old or a 23-year-old triathlete. Tough bikkies!! He cost taxpayers a bomb, and I don't mean just an old VW!! Stop a-whingeing and a-whining granddad!! Let's get Hubba Bubba. Crazy name, crazy guy!

What a hero! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's Fearless Feeley, the squinty-eyed crime-fighting superman bravely standing up to wussy-pussy public opinion in his quest for justice from those bad bankers. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do!! To infinity, of legal fees and really really long trials, and beyond! You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Super-Feeley-Office: that copper can cop a feel anytime!! Geddit!!

Have a heart, cold fish Feeley!! Are you a man or a machine? Robo-Feeley a-romping and a-stomping over the little guys without even giving them a bean to defend themselves. Exterminate!! Exterminate!! Dr Who? We've never heard of ya!! Pick on someone your own shoe size bully boy! Touchy-feely, I don't think!!

Marie Antoinette Hotchin - arenchasickofher? A-swishing and a-swanning over there in Ocker-land while your investors don't have a bowl of gruel to rub together. We know who is really to blame for Greece defaulting and global warming: Miss High-and-Mighty Hotchpotch, fiddling while Rome burns, that's who. To the barricades, chaps!! Bring your knitting!!

Mandy Hotchin, what a gal! Don't pick on our little Mandy-rella, standing by her hubby in his hour of need in her tatty last year's Yvonne Bennetti rags. Don't mind us, we're with the Mand!! You could be our Princess Di. Such a lovely jubbly lass, wouldn't hurt a fly!!

John Key, arenchasickofhim? Dr Evil!! Writing out cheques for one-squillion-dollaaars for all and sundry from his mini-me taxpayers. Oh be-have!!! Or we might have to write you a Dear John letter. Seeya!! Wouldn't want to be ya!!

John Key!! What a smile!! What a guy!! He's a-caring and a-sharing helping all those folks in need!! You can turn your key in my lock anytime!! Geddit?!!

Here they are Debbie's loaded Lotharios!!! Mark Weldon!! Well done Weldon! He's our champ raising $82 million for the earthquake appeal!! Pity you couldn't do the same for the stock exchange Marky but I'd still give you a medal!! Fwhoarr!! Rob Fyfe!! Foxy Fyfe kept his planes up in the air!! Takes more than a puff of ash to bring Air New Zealand's cap'n down to earth!! I'd inaugurate you into the mile high club Robbo!!

 Alasdair Thompson!!! Take no prisoners Thompson tellin' it like it is for our big bosses!! Those silly fillies who are always a-skiving and a-diving out of the office for their girly plumbing and costing us all a packet in the process!! I'll pull a sickie for you Al!!! Geddit??!!

* With apologies to Private Eye.

Allan Hubbard Saga

Full SFO Statement on SCF Fraud Investigation

Hubbard Letter to Simon Power
Download Grant Thornton Report 1
Download Grant Thornton Report 2
Download Grant Thornton Report 3
Download Grant Thornton Report 4
Download Grant Thornton Report 5
Download Grant Thornton Report 6

c Share Investor 2011

Allied Farmers: Hanover & Allied close mates

It is funny what you find when you are googling. While searching Allied Farmers Ltd [ALF.NZX] after their late night profit announcement for 2010 out last Friday, I came across this little gem published in April 2007 on the IRG website:

Allied Farmers (ALF) is being transformed from a livestock and rural services company into a major player in finance. Initially its finance arm aimed to service farmers requiring finance in their farming activity. But with the agreement this week to acquire 100% of the shares in Nationwide Finance for $33m, Allied becomes a major player in the field. Nationwide Finance Limited, part of the Hanover Group, is a diversified finance company providing property and commercial finance. It has total assets of approximately $160m, which will be added to Allied’s current finance subsidiary, Allied Prime Finance to give it scale needed to operate successfully in the finance industry. Finance should offset some of the risks inherent in livestock trading and other rural activities.

The thing is, after the receivership of Allied Nationwide Finance (it changed it name to this after the 2007 purchase and its folding into Allied Prime, Allied's own finance company) on the 23 August 2010, it doesn't appear that many knew that Nationwide had a previous connection to Hanover. The much written about purchase of the failed Hanover Groups assets late in 2009 by Allied Farmers seem to have swallowed all the detail in its wake.

Allied Farmers soon retiring CEO Rob Alloway seems to have had a cosy relationship with directors at Hanover over a number of years and you cant tell me that the fate of Nationwide wasn't obvious before Rob and his fellow directors at Allied Farmers bought Hanover's whole kit and caboodle last December.

In 2004 Deborah Hill Cone wrote a very good piece on Hanover as a whole. In it she describes not only the dubious nature of the majority of Hanover's financial health (it had a credit rating below BBB, junk bond status) lending (inter-party stuff) but specifically on Nationwide Finance:

"... related party transactions and Nationwide Finance's reveal a further $13.8 million.

I initially understood that the December purchase (and the previous months of negotiation) was the first connection to Hanover with Allied Farmers but to find that their relationship goes back almost 3 years before that gets me thinking about all the back slapping and secret deals that must have gone on over the years.

Mr Alloway has mislead Hanover investors (and has done so subsequently several times) and his own Allied Farmers investors pre Hanover over the value of Hanover assets and his long term involvement with Hanover makes the December purchase look even murkier.

Is it a case of mates helping out mates?

Allied Farmers @ Share Investor

Long Term View: Allied Farmers Ltd
Allied Farmers: Rights Issue Decision
Allied Farmers: Prosecutions should be on the cards
Allied Farmers Fraud passes with little fanfare
Allied Farmers: What's it Worth?
Hanover, Allied Farmers deal more of the same

Discuss ALF @ Share Investor Forum
Download ALF Company Reports


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c Share Investor 2010

VW Veneer reveals BMW heart

While waiting to get my fish and chips order today for lunch, while out planting some trees for a client I started reading an article by Deborah Hill Cone in the Friday September 3rd edition of the Business Herald lift-out (5 year old "Womans Days" with Rach & Rod on the cover don't do it for me anymore) and what was she writing about?

Yep the man without a plan, the man everyone loves to hate, formally the richest man in Timaru (where is that again?) Allan Hubbard.

I wasn't going to go back there but after my order of 1 chips and a scoop arrived (that is what they call it in the Hawkesbay where I lived my formative years) I just had to keep reading.

Debs made some really good points.

We already know the financial shenanigans and shell games Mr Hubbard and his good mates were up to with other peoples moola but Debs, (I can call her that because I live in Auckland and we are a close knit family up here too) as she does, came at things with quite a unique angle.

She was looking at the intensely close, almost incestuous nature of the order of things in the part of the country that Hubbard and his mates come from.

This she contends, dates back from early settlers who arrived in boats from old mother England and continued their class distinctions in their new land that shows today in the back slapping, secret handshaking, old schoolboy network that supported Mr Hubbard and that supports him to this day. This New Zealand breed of wannabe aristocrats didn't like to flaunt their wealth Though.

She described them well as the airtex wearing, holey jumpered men who looked like paupers but were actually well to do and their lady companions who "wore their collars upturned".

It was kinda like an awe shucks look at me mentality I'm so down to earth, I must be I'm dressed like a bum.

Witness the epitome of this in Mr Hubbard. New Zealands answer to Warren Buffett, who is well known for his frugality and homespun hokiness - he would call it old fashioned. Mr Hubbard is top to toe well-worn Hallensteins circa 1950 and even drives a beat up VW which doesn't look like it has seen much back seat action (if at all) since it was bought by him in the 1960s.

Of course at at one stage though the NBR valued this man a half a billion.

That is of course when this whole charade unravels into reality.

These strange people in this clique of people down there in the Canterbury area (If you are reading this and actually flaunt your wealth like most Aucklanders then I am probably not talking about you) stick together like a Parnell Girl to her Takapuna Grammar old boy 10 years her senior and the motivation for support of Allan Hubbard seems connected to the tribe mentality of looking after the individuals in the pack, should the whole tribes reputation suffer a mortal moral, legal or in this case financial gaping wound.

If I maybe serious for one moment, this appears to be the reason why the main pack behind support for Allan Hubbard, the old boys network of Canterbury ( I am a bit jealous because Onehunga High School where I hail from doesn't have this sort of network) is rallying the ignorant, angry, lonely hoi poloi around them in the hope that the herd will stop the all important old boys network from a fatal blow.

This sort of protection of the big fish is great if you can get it and the network in and around Christchurch and Timaru are doing a sterling job of circling the wagons in the face of the reality of even bigger fish from the Serious Fraud Office and forensic auditors crawling so far up Mr Hubbard's backside not even a Christchurch Boys High School old boy could get a finger up there let alone anything else.

I had a different opinion of the support for Mr Hubbard, I thought it was sheer ignorance and stupidity (well?) but my good mate Debs up here in Auckland has convinced me it is mostly about protectionism; of a group that has always seen itself as the ones who make the decisions and wield the power over ordinary folk like you and me.

Amazing what you can find in yesterdays fish and chip paper huh?


Related Share Investor Reading

Download Grant Thornton Report 1
Download Grant Thornton Report 2

VIDEO: Jenni McManus Explains Allan Hubbard Collapse
Allan Hubbard Statement on SCF Receivership
VIDEO: Sandy Maier - full news conference on SCF R...s
Market Alert: South Canterbury Finance to be placed in Receivership
Allan Hubbard: Ignorant Supporters Blissfully Unaware
Thornton Report 2: Allan Hubbard Guilty as Charged
Allan Hubbard: Full TV3 Interview - July 16 2010
Thornton Report: Allan Hubbard's Aorangi Securities
Whatever happened to? Muriel Dunn
Bothered by Simon Botherway
Allied Farmers: Prosecutions should be on the cards
Allied Farmers Fraud passes with little fanfare
Allied Farmers: What's it Worth?
Hanover, Allied Farmers deal more of the same
Jane Diplock Q & A Interview
Hanover's "White Knights" are really daylight robbers
Hanover collapse: It was just a matter of time
Money Managers Saga: 3 Story wrap
Money Managers gives First Step investors the middle finger
Greed is bad: Geneva Finance Folds
Financial 101: Learn before you leap
Kevin's Blog


Recommended Amazon Reading


The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham
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c Share Investor 2010

VW Veneer reveals BMW heart

While waiting to get my fish and chips order today for lunch, while out planting some trees for a client I started reading an article by Deborah Hill Cone in the Friday September 3rd edition of the Business Herald lift-out (5 year old "Womans Days" with Rach & Rod on the cover don't do it for me anymore) and what was she writing about?

Yep the man without a plan, the man everyone loves to hate, formally the richest man in Timaru (where is that again?) Allan Hubbard.

I wasn't going to go back there but after my order of 1 chips and a scoop arrived (that is what they call it in the Hawkesbay where I lived my formative years) I just had to keep reading.

Debs made some really good points.

We already know the financial shenanigans and shell games Mr Hubbard and his good mates were up to with other peoples moola but Debs, (I can call her that because I live in Auckland and we are a close knit family up here too) as she does, came at things with quite a unique angle.

She was looking at the intensely close, almost incestuous nature of the order of things in the part of the country that Hubbard and his mates come from.

This she contends, dates back from early settlers who arrived in boats from old mother England and continued their class distinctions in their new land that shows today in the back slapping, secret handshaking, old schoolboy network that supported Mr Hubbard and that supports him to this day. This New Zealand breed of wannabe aristocrats didn't like to flaunt their wealth Though.

She described them well as the airtex wearing, holey jumpered men who looked like paupers but were actually well to do and their lady companions who "wore their collars upturned".

It was kinda like an awe shucks look at me mentality I'm so down to earth, I must be I'm dressed like a bum.

Witness the epitome of this in Mr Hubbard. New Zealands answer to Warren Buffett, who is well known for his frugality and homespun hokiness - he would call it old fashioned. Mr Hubbard is top to toe well-worn Hallensteins circa 1950 and even drives a beat up VW which doesn't look like it has seen much back seat action (if at all) since it was bought by him in the 1960s.

Of course at at one stage though the NBR valued this man a half a billion.

That is of course when this whole charade unravels into reality.

These strange people in this clique of people down there in the Canterbury area (If you are reading this and actually flaunt your wealth like most Aucklanders then I am probably not talking about you) stick together like a Parnell Girl to her Takapuna Grammar old boy 10 years her senior and the motivation for support of Allan Hubbard seems connected to the tribe mentality of looking after the individuals in the pack, should the whole tribes reputation suffer a mortal moral, legal or in this case financial gaping wound.

If I maybe serious for one moment, this appears to be the reason why the main pack behind support for Allan Hubbard, the old boys network of Canterbury ( I am a bit jealous because Onehunga High School where I hail from doesn't have this sort of network) is rallying the ignorant, angry, lonely hoi poloi around them in the hope that the herd will stop the all important old boys network from a fatal blow.

This sort of protection of the big fish is great if you can get it and the network in and around Christchurch and Timaru are doing a sterling job of circling the wagons in the face of the reality of even bigger fish from the Serious Fraud Office and forensic auditors crawling so far up Mr Hubbard's backside not even a Christchurch Boys High School old boy could get a finger up there let alone anything else.

I had a different opinion of the support for Mr Hubbard, I thought it was sheer ignorance and stupidity (well?) but my good mate Debs up here in Auckland has convinced me it is mostly about protectionism; of a group that has always seen itself as the ones who make the decisions and wield the power over ordinary folk like you and me.

Amazing what you can find in yesterdays fish and chip paper huh?


Related Share Investor Reading

Download Grant Thornton Report 1
Download Grant Thornton Report 2

VIDEO: Jenni McManus Explains Allan Hubbard Collapse
Allan Hubbard Statement on SCF Receivership
VIDEO: Sandy Maier - full news conference on SCF R...s
Market Alert: South Canterbury Finance to be placed in Receivership
Allan Hubbard: Ignorant Supporters Blissfully Unaware
Thornton Report 2: Allan Hubbard Guilty as Charged
Allan Hubbard: Full TV3 Interview - July 16 2010
Thornton Report: Allan Hubbard's Aorangi Securities
Whatever happened to? Muriel Dunn
Bothered by Simon Botherway
Allied Farmers: Prosecutions should be on the cards
Allied Farmers Fraud passes with little fanfare
Allied Farmers: What's it Worth?
Hanover, Allied Farmers deal more of the same
Jane Diplock Q & A Interview
Hanover's "White Knights" are really daylight robbers
Hanover collapse: It was just a matter of time
Money Managers Saga: 3 Story wrap
Money Managers gives First Step investors the middle finger
Greed is bad: Geneva Finance Folds
Financial 101: Learn before you leap
Kevin's Blog


Recommended Fishpond Reading



Buy The Intelligent Investor & more @ Fishpond.co.nz




c Share Investor 2010