No anger at receivership

New Zealand Malt Whisky Company owner Warren Preston is not angry his company has been placed in receivership after a tumultuous three weeks.

Mr Preston and his wife, Debbie, received notification their major financier, South Canterbury Finance Ltd, called in the receivers late last Friday, just as they were leaving for the West Coast for a family break.

"Some people, when they get put into receivership, are quite angry and annoyed with others.

"But I'm not.

"I think we have been given a fair go, and it is now a matter of making the best of what we have got," he said yesterday.

The receivership came after the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust decided last month to evict and lock out the company from its leased three-storey Loan and Mercantile building, on the corner of Harbour and Wansbeck Sts in the Oamaru historic precinct.

Since then, the Prestons have been trying to realise some assets to pay the outstanding rent and reopen.

In the building, the company has a licensed cafe-tearooms, a barrel house for whisky ageing, bottling and tasting, and a general merchant's store.

But the company's rent is $70,000 in arrears.

The receivers are Duncan Fea and Alistair King of WHK in Central Otago.

Mr Fea said yesterday one of the top priorities was to get someone to move into the Whisky cafe and get it reopened.

Yesterday, Mr Fea met the Whitestone trust and said they would work closely together to have the cafe occupied and open.

"They [the trust] are in a very positive frame of mind to move forward."

He was still compiling debts owed by the company, and said it was too early to indicate whether it could trade out of its difficulties.

Mr Preston felt South Canterbury Finance had no option but to call in receivers after the eviction and he did not blame the finance company.

"I, as owner of the company, signed on the bottom line a few years ago, and my idea has not come to fruition.

"In plain language, it hasn't worked."

"The receivers were now managing the company, and Mr Preston said he was assisting them - "the most sensible thing to be doing".

At this stage, he did not know whether the receivers would attempt to trade the company out of its difficulties or wind it up.

The company had 450 barrels of whisky stored in the Loan and Mercantile building.

Some had been sold, and there had been other interest in it.

Mr Fea said the whisky stock, of which close to 50% was single malt, was one of the company's biggest assets.

The whisky was well known, and there was considerable interest in buying it, both in large and small amounts.

It was the receivers' intention to sell the whisky stock to repay debts.

Mr and Mrs Preston also had a sale contract on land they owned at Queenstown, which they had been planning to sell to pay off rent arrears.

david.bruce@odt.co.nz