{"id":617426,"date":"2026-10-01T12:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/617426\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T12:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:58:12","slug":"solarzero-liquidators-sue-four-former-directors-over-companys-476m-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/617426\/","title":{"rendered":"SolarZero liquidators sue four former directors over company\u2019s $476m collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFollowing an extensive investigation into the company\u2019s financial position, governance records, financing arrangements and related transactions, we have concluded it is appropriate to commence proceedings,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

If successful, any funds recovered would be allocated to stakeholders.<\/p>\n

SolarZero was placed in voluntary liquidation in November <\/a>2024 after directors said \u201cunsustainable operating losses and liquidity constraints\u201d meant it could not continue trading.<\/p>\n

At the time, the company had more than 160 employees and about 15,000 customers.<\/p>\n

It had sold solar and battery systems through a no-upfront-cost, monthly \u201cenergy as a service\u201d model.<\/p>\n

The first liquidators\u2019 report said most customer contracts and the associated assets had been transferred to special-purpose trusts controlled by the Public Trust, rather than sitting with the companies in liquidation.<\/p>\n

The trusts continued operating and customers were not, in general, creditors of those companies.<\/p>\n

The liquidators reported that a BlackRock-controlled fund bought SolarZero for $110m in 2022 and subsequently injected $147.8m.<\/p>\n

The Government-owned New Zealand Green Investment Finance bank had made a $145m debt facility available, of which about $115m had been drawn down against installations at liquidation.<\/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":"\u201cFollowing an extensive investigation into the company\u2019s financial position, governance records, financing arrangements and related transactions, we have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7501,304117,304116,1443,9092,138,17400,42503,1656,49063,1349,6948,12938,2740,48050,3011,305,2959,57327,33450,12624,9876,1132,111,139,69,1523,26692,34748,121792,69329,1361],"class_list":["post-617426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-7501","tag-304117","tag-476m","tag-about","tag-against","tag-business","tag-collapse","tag-collapsed","tag-company","tag-companys","tag-court","tag-directors","tag-filed","tag-former","tag-formerly","tag-four","tag-have","tag-high","tag-infinity","tag-known","tag-liquidators","tag-lunar","tag-million","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-owing","tag-proceedings","tag-solarzero","tag-sue","tag-that"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617426","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=617426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}