Pact gagged about housing details

State houses in north Invercargill. Photo by Allison Beckham
State houses in north Invercargill. Photo by Allison Beckham
Pact Group has been gagged from speaking openly about the Invercargill state house sell-off, but says more than one bank had been happy to finance the deal.

The sell-off effectively collapsed last week when it was confirmed the Dunedin charity had ruled itself out of bidding for the city's 348 state houses.

Pact was the only potential bidder for the Invercargill houses.

Finance was not the issue, Pact corporate services director Paul Chamberlain said yesterday.

"I had conversations with a number of interested banks who were all willing to finance the transaction.''

The potential deal involved a 25-year social housing contract with the Ministry of Social Development.

Pact signed a confidentiality agreement with the Government limiting what it could say in public.

The quality of the housing stock was not the reason Pact backed out, he said.

"It's not really an easy single answer.

"We had full and excellent information provided around the quality of the housing stock.''

He estimated the organisation spent less than $20,000 on its own due diligence.

"I have no knowledge of what the Government plans to do next. They haven't discussed that with us, and I don't believe they know that themselves right at the moment,'' Mr Chamberlain said.

Invercargill state house tenants had nothing to fear from the current uncertainty, he believed.

"By and large I'm pretty happy with how it all went.

"I'm not happy with the outcome per se, but there isn't anything wrong with the process, or what the Government's trying to do.''

Last Friday, Finance Minister Bill English said the Government was assessing its options.

eileen.goodwin@odt.co.nz

 

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