{"id":523179,"date":"2026-07-13T03:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/523179\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T03:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:09:08","slug":"liquidation-for-ex-hawkins-firms-nears-end-unsecured-creditors-get-4c-in-the-dollar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/523179\/","title":{"rendered":"Liquidation for ex-Hawkins firms nears end: unsecured creditors get 4c in the dollar"},"content":{"rendered":"The company was founded in Hamilton in 1946 by Fred Hawkins.<\/p>\n
In 2017, just prior to an adverse ruling that Hawkins should pay $13.3m to the Ministry of Education over a flawed construction project at a Botany Downs secondary school, Hawkins sold its business operations to Downer for a reported $60m.<\/p>\n
Hawkins at the time was the second-largest New Zealand-owned construction firm, with reported annual revenues of about $700m and a staff of around 700.<\/p>\n
ASX-listed Downer still maintains the Hawkins brand for its New Zealand operations.<\/p>\n
The underwater remnants of Hawkins left out of the sale were rebranded as the Orange H Group and had receivers appointed in 2018 by shareholder and industry heavyweights the McConnell family, who claimed to be owed tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
Liquidators were appointed shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n
The final liquidators\u2019 report filed in March for H Construction North Island, the main trading entity for the historical Hawkins group, reported legal action had been undertaken against the company\u2019s directors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe liquidators reached a confidential settlement with the directors and all associated parties following mediation, without any admission of wrongdoing or liability,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
The settlement was reported to total $6.6m, with the majority ($4.7m) going to McConnell to repay liquidator funding.<\/p>\n
The liquidators\u2019 report said $2.2m had been spent on legal fees.<\/p>\n
Unsecured creditors for H Construction North Island fared better than those owed money by more distant subsidiaries and ended up with a reported 18c in the dollar payout.<\/p>\n
Grant Thornton, managing the liquidation, said in its recent report that investigations had been completed and the last members of the group would likely be struck off by July 2028.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 including twice being named Reporter of the Year \u2013 and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.<\/p>\n
Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The company was founded in Hamilton in 1946 by Fred Hawkins. In 2017, just prior to an adverse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[259089,2438,138,1568,17397,7011,8127,259088,25337,2082,1333,82766,259090,78,6121,2739,12624,259091,18989,11688,111,139,69,5352,2249,223,8229,53689,1533,102,108562],"class_list":["post-523179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-4c","tag-administration","tag-business","tag-construction","tag-creditors","tag-dollar","tag-end","tag-exhawkins","tag-firms","tag-for","tag-get","tag-hawkins","tag-husk","tag-in","tag-insolvency","tag-liquidation","tag-liquidators","tag-neardecade","tag-nearing","tag-nears","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-reporting","tag-soon","tag-the","tag-they","tag-unsecured","tag-will","tag-with","tag-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}