Listed Propertyfinance Group's principal subsidiary Propertyfinance Securities (PFS) has applied for a High Court injunction to temporarily halt its trustee Covenant Trustee Company from being able to appoint receivers, The New Zealand Herald reported. The injunction is being sought until PFS can hold a previously announced special meeting of stockholders.

The savings of about 5000 customers of New Zealand hamper company Mrs Christmas are in limbo after the business went into liquidation this morning, The National Business Review reported. In a shock move, Mrs Christmas withdrew its opposition to an application for liquidation filed by courier company Post Haste. This cleared the way for Associate Judge David Robinson to place the company in the hands of liquidators Damien Grant and Steven Khov of Waterstone Insolvency. “The evidence establishes that the defendant is indeed insolvent,” he said this morning.

Bob Bangerter has been adjudicated bankrupt by a New Zealand court for the second time. Sir Robert Jones' company, Robt Jones Holding, had applied to bankrupt the Blue Chip co-founder because the company was owed $395,000 of unpaid rent for an Auckland office block where Blue Chip operated from. The 72-year-old Mr Bangerter had signed personal guarantees for the lease on the premise. Mr Bangerter was not represented in the High Court at Auckland today--his partner Maree Aitkenhead said he could not appear in court due to ill health.

Investors in the failed fund management group Babcock & Brown have experienced a "terrible destruction of value'' in the wake of its collapse, the company's joint administrator said today. David Lombe, who was appointed just over a week ago as administrator, said that his team from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu would seek to get as much back for the company's noteholders as possible following the first creditors' meeting held in Sydney today, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

New Zealand firm phil&teds has purchased defunct children’s buggy manufacturer Mountain Buggy, The National Business Review reported. Parent company Tritec Manufacturing--which makes the buggy--and Mountain Buggy New Zealand went into receivership at the end of January with an estimated debt of $22 million. No details on how much the company was bought for have been released. Receivers PricewaterhouseCooper have sold the business as a going concern. Chief executive Campbell Gower said “phil&teds will run the Mountain Buggy factory in New Zealand before making any decisions.

New Zealand investors have nixed Babcock & Brown’s hope of staying afloat, rejecting a restructure proposal and an 0.1% payout on their $225 million investment in Babcock subordinated notes, The National Business Review reported. Babcock is now in administration, as the vote that was to be held later today in Australia will no longer take place. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu have been appointed as administrators. They will ask creditors to nominate a committee of representatives at the first meeting to be held on March 25.

Personal insolvencies in New Zealand have jumped in the first full year after a simplified alternative to bankruptcy was introduced, but new restrictions may not provide much more of a barrier to people taking up the option, The National Business Review reported. "No asset procedures" or NAPs, provide a one-off chance for people with no assets to wipe off up to $40,000 in debt and emerge a year later with a clean slate to borrow again. Further restrictions on NAPs were proposed this week in a bill introduced to Parliament by Commerce Minister Simon Power.

Edward Harman, the New Zealand man behind a string of failed investments involving a coterie of well-known business people, has been bankrupted as concerns emerge over the liquidation of his companies, The National Business Review reported. Mr Harman was declared bankrupt last week in the High Court at Auckland, as the result of a creditor’s petition. He is the director of five companies placed into voluntary liquidation last July: Fairthorne Investments, Fairthorne Trading, Fairthorne Ventures, Paeroa Investments and Wake Investments.

The New Zealand government says it had no reason to believe that Mascot Finance would fail when it granted it a taxpayer-funded deposit guarantee in January, The Press reported. Questions over whether the Crown should have given Mascot Finance a guarantee arose after if it went into receivership seven weeks after getting a guarantee. How big the bill to the taxpayer will be from Mascot is unclear. Receivers Deloitte say it is too early to say whether Mascot's assets outweigh its liabilities.

Tritec Manufacturing’s UK subsidiary Mountain Buggy UK has had all its European assets frozen by a Dutch bank after Denmark-based company DK Intertrade alleged the pushchair manufacturer had breached a contract, The National Business Review reported. The Danish distribution company was in court in New Zealand last week in a bid to get compensation as it believes Mountain Buggy breached a distribution contract. The company had already asked the Dutch court to freeze the assets of the UK subsidiary.