Warning flags included East Wind offering fixed-interest currency trading investments, usually a highly volatile asset class and also Ashikaga’s requirement that prospective migrants invest in his trading entities to help secure visas.
East Wind was comprised of seven related companies in liquidation, six of which saw their last rites – final liquidators’ reports – posted to the Companies Office in December.
In their final report, Stephanie Jeffreys and Malcom Moore of Grant Thornton said the six companies owed a total of 171 creditors $43.3m.
Two of the smaller entities – owing 10 creditors less than $20,000 – paid out those owing between 69 and 83 cents in the dollar.
There was bad news for the remaining vast majority of creditors who account for more than 99% of the outstanding total, the report said.
“There are insufficient funds to distribute to unsecured creditors of any of the other companies,” the report said.
There is marginally better news for the one East Wind company for which liquidators are still working through.
Best Invest NZ, which owed 13 creditors just over $10m, has made some recoveries and reports a closing balance of $628,228.
A High Court hearing in February will determine which unsecured creditors’ claims are accepted.
If all are, this suggests recoveries of 6c in the dollar might be reasonably expected.
The collapse of East Wind caused a minor diplomatic stir, as both the Japanese embassy in Wellington, and New Zealand’s in Tokyo, fielded complaints from angry investors.
Grant Thornton’s fees, across the six companies closed last month and Best Invest NZ, total $1.4m since its appointment in 2019. Legal fees amounted to $854,336.
The Serious Fraud Office began a belated investigation into East Wind in 2019 after the Herald began reporting on the case, and well after its apparent ringleader had died.
It was revealed the SFO had received a formal complaint about East Wind five years prior, but had elected to refer it to Immigration New Zealand (INZ).
INZ had declined to take any action “because of other operation priorities”.
Ashikaga’s widow, Sandy Tsai, died of cancer in 2020 before being interviewed by liquidators, leaving authorities little to go on.
Grant Thornton pursued the estates of both Ashikaga and Tsai, and recovered $369,294 in a settlement.
East Wind employee Yuko Hanyu was charged by the SFO with false accounting and theft by a person in a special relationship in 2022.
She has pleaded not guilty, and the case is due to be heard at trial in February.
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.
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