Petricevic admits he should have read document

Rod Petricevic said yesterday Bridgecorp investors needed to read an allegedly misleading prospectus "in total'' to get a sense of it - but the former managing director did not go through the document "top to bottom'' himself before signing it.

Petricevic, on trial for misleading investors in Bridgecorp's offer documents, went through a second day of a grilling cross-examination in the High Court at Auckland by Crown lawyer Warren Cathcart.

Mr Cathcart questioned Petricevic about a statement in Bridgecorp's 2006 prospectus that the failed finance firm managed liquidity risk by maintaining a minimum cash float in bank deposit.

The Crown alleges this was untrue.

"When you signed the prospectus of December 21 you knew that policy had been breached?'' the Crown lawyer asked. "It was not something I focused on,'' Petricevic replied.

The former managing director said he relied on "people he trusted'' telling him that lines of the prospectus were true.

"If [the statement] hadn't been signed off by the general manager of finance, I would have been concerned,'' Petricevic said.

After being told by Mr Cathcart to put himself in "an investor's shoes'' and asked if someone would have taken comfort in the statement about the cash float, Petricevic said: "The prospectus needs to be read in total, not just by one line.''

However, earlier in cross-examination the former director said he did not read the prospectus in full himself before signing it.

"I read the mark-ups. I didn't read the full prospectus,'' Petricevic said.

The trial continues today and is expected to run until March.

Around 14,500 investors lost $459 million when Bridgecorp collapsed in July 2007.

- Hamish Fletcher, New Zealand Herald