The number of companies listed on the New Zealand sharemarket will continue to shrink this year, according a forecast on the capital markets. Law firm Chapman Tripp has released a trends and insights report on New Zealand's Equity Markets and is predicting more departures from the NZX and just three new companies to list - a number in line with previous years, The New Zealand Herald reported.

The receivers of Pumpkin Patch will have all stores closed by mid-February after they couldn't entice a buyer for the failed children's wear chain, which traded through the traditionally busy holiday period, The New Zealand Herald reported. Sixty-eight stores employing 560 people will close by Jan. 31, and the remaining 56 stores across New Zealand and Australia will shut as and when stock is sold, through the middle of next month, receiver Neale Jackson of KordaMentha said in a statement. Pumpkin Patch staff at head office will lose their jobs over the coming weeks.

Pumpkin Patch owes its bank nearly $60 million and its unsecured creditors another $13.2m. A receivers' report by Brendon Gibson and Neale Jackson of KordaMentha shows the children's clothing company, which was put into receivership in October, owed $59.5m, chiefly to the ANZ. Preferred creditors, largely the 1600 staff it employed in the lead-up to its receivership, were still owed $1.5m. Inland Revenue had not submitted a claim yet. It was too early to say whether the $13.2m owed to unsecured creditors could be retrieved, the report said.

Millionaire property magnates the Chow brothers have been forced to buy a fire services company to protect a bank loan they bought earlier this year, Business Day reported. Michael and John Chow, with their business partner Clint Webber, made a quick decision to buy AFS Total Fire Protection after the Inland Revenue Department threatened to put the company into liquidation on Friday. AFS Total Fire Protection designs, builds and installs fire protection systems to making sure building complies with fire regulations.

Software company Wynyard Group has been put in voluntary administration. KordaMentha partners Neale Jackson and Grant Graham have been appointed administrators of the company, which creates security software for use by companies and law enforcement agencies. It's been a difficult year for Wynyard, with its board warning in August that the company's future was in question and signalling uncertainty underlying its assumptions about cash-flow and future sales.

Overseas graduates declaring themselves penniless are among the 483 debtors whose $18 million in students loans have been wiped by bankruptcies, Stuff.co.nz reported. Inland Revenue has revealed the latest figures as the amount owed by student loan defaulters tips over the $1 billion mark. The 10 biggest overseas debtors owe more than $300,000 each. Some are dying in debt. Ministry of Education figures show that, in the year to June 2015, $19m of student loan debt was written off because of the death of the borrower. That compared with $16m written off because of bankruptcy.

A plan to regulate the insolvency sector and shut down unscrupulous operators is being welcomed by an industry body, Radio New Zealand reported. The government has released the first part of a review into insolvency laws, which recommends licensing for practitioners and steps to improve protection for creditors in voluntary liquidations. The working group's report said current regulation fell short of ensuring creditors could have confidence that practitioners handling corporate insolvency are qualified and bound by an acceptable code of ethics.

New Zealand's insolvency practitioners look likely to face a new licensing regime after a report to Commerce Minister Paul Goldsmith found that gaps in existing rules enable dishonesty and incompetence, The New Zealand Herald reported. The public has until Oct. 7 to make submissions on a review of insolvency law, which Goldsmith says is primarily to find what the minimum level of entry should be for the specialists tasked with winding down companies.

Woosh Wireless' creditors, thought to be owed almost $13 million, have voted to put the troubled internet provider into liquidation, The New Zealand Herald reported. The business was founded in 1999 and has burned through more than $100 million since that time. Grappling with the challenge of its ageing technology, the company had been winding down some of its operations. It sold about 10,000 of its customers to Slingshot last year and still had about 2000 on its books. After trading unprofitably, two Woosh companies were put into voluntary administration in May.

Electronics retailer Dick Smith has been put into receivership after its banks refused to keep propping it up following poor sales. The company, which has nearly 400 stores in Australia and New Zealand, said in August it was carrying too much of the wrong type of goods and that, combined with soft consumer demand, meant it was being forced to cut its margins to keep afloat. Since then it has twice warned that it wouldn't make its earnings forecasts - it slashed prices and had big pre-Christmas bargain sales.