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August 2012 Edition ----

Please peruse our evidence (really proof) of the Government backed Feltex IPO $250m robbery. Click here.

Well it seems the partial privatisation of the state enterprise Mighty River Power is going to take place. Lots of documentation has to be prepared including Director Profiles to go in the prospectus. We have decided to help out and provide this particular. It will enable the directors and management to concentrate on many other tasks. Four of the nine board members claim membership of the NZICA and another at least has an MBA so the task is rather within our domain. Well here it is, ready for the printer:

Our Directors

Chairperson: Joan Withers

Born and basically schooled in Manchester Ms Withers made her mark in an NZ state broadcasting organisation with her ability to present information as politicians would like it. Following that she built up an impressive portfolio of directorships having completed an MBA degree at Auckland University. She is the only Mighty River Power director with known experience of being a director while a company has undertaken an Initial Public Offer of its shareholding on the NZ Stock Exchange. Since this is highly pertinent to the purpose of this Mighty River document Ms Wither's former dedication to that task is here presented.

Firstly Ms Withers has satisfied herself that the company making the initial offer, Feltex Carpets Ltd, was worthy of investor trust in it. As an Australia and New Zealand carpet manufacturer Feltex had enjoyed heavy tariff protection in within these two countries under CER. But the tariffs had been reducing because of the desire for international free trade. A competitor manufacturing in Australia, Shaw Industries, had decided that it was cheaper to supply the Australasian market by manufacturing outside these two countries and so sold its run down plant to Feltex, who continued to operate the plant as if Shaw's market was available to it. But Feltex did not have Shaw's brands. The likelihood was that Shaws would be able to maintain its market share in Australasia and production from its somewhat dilapidated former Australian mills owned by Feltex would have nowhere to go. Feltex was moving its head office to Australia where most of its production was then based, but gave the impression in the prospectus that it was NZ domiciled.

On page 37 of the 2004 Feltex Carpets prospectus the Australian Carpet Market size for the previous 11 known years is recorded together with a statement that in the period so covered, 1993 to 2003, the size had grown at an average rate of 1.7% p a compounding. The sizes in millions of square meters from 1993 to 2003 respectively were given as 44.7,49.9,52.2,47.9, 49.5,50.0,50.3,54.0,49.1,49.0,53.1 . Feltex have used these figures to claim that based on the last 10 years of known market size its allowance of 1% p a growth in Feltex sales due to market size changes used in its projection of its 2005 sales was justified. A conventional accountant would take the last 10 years of known figures (not including the 44.6) and use least squares regression analysis on a spreadsheet to predict a market size for the year 2005 of 51.5 which is 3% less than the actual figure for 2003. Feltex with Ms Withers as a director used only two figure to arrive at its 1.7% p a growth prediction, these being the very low and eleventh most recent figure, that for 1993, and that for 2003. This can be demonstrated growing the 1993 figure of 44.7 for ten years at 1.7% pa. 44.7*(1.017)^10 = 52.9 which is close to the 2003 figure. The difference of 5% between the two methods represents a lot more than 5% of projected profits, perhaps 25%.

Feltex also assumed a 1% p a increase in revenue due to increasing market share but did not say directly what its recent change in revenue due to change in market share had been. This could be calculated at a fall of 5% for each of the two most recent known periods.

And by becoming the only woman director on the Feltex board Ms Withers ensured that women would fully participate in the predictable results of the newly floated Feltex Carpets.

As an indication of Ms Wither's dedication to her task, very soon after Feltex announced a substantial drop in anticipated profit Ms Withers quit. She gave just over a year of service. She got a job purging the staff at Fairfax NZ. And for her sterling efforts she has gone onward and upward mainly at the Government's behest.

Deputy Chairperson: Trevor Janes

Mr Janes started off as a stockbroker. About the turn of the century he become a director of Accident Compensation Corporation and the chairman of the Corporation's Investment Committee. Investments were becoming an important part of the Corporations activities and a tempting source of funds for all purposes. During this period the Corporation bought half a million dollars of National Mail stock just a week or so before that company went out of the mail business and 95% of stock value was so lost. The Corporation should have known that the vendor of the stock was one Cliff Cook. It knew that one of the directors of National Mail was Peter Fitzsimonds and Mr Fitzsimonds' known other job was as chairman of listed company Metlifecare of which Mr Cook was also a director and was that company's largest shareholder. Mr Fitzsimonds was not entitled to tell Mr Cook anything about how National Mail was faring of course. But the Corporation should have realised that Mr Cook might just have caught Mr Fitzsimonds with a frown on his face and hence had better knowledge of National Mail's state than it did. Mr Cook's broker was Credit Suisse F B. The ACC use a wide range of brokers and presumably to get independent view chose C S First Boston to be its broker on this occasion. Mr Janes appears unconcerned about this loss of ACC funds. He presumably saw that buying dud stock before the public knew it was dud was an OK way for his friends the Government to distribute funds.

Mr Janes went off the ACC board in 2002 to be replaced by Eion Edgar who became highly decorated. In 2004 ACC apparently "spent" $9m on a Feltex Carpets subscription although it did not list this investment in its annual report. Despite such hijinks Mr Janes came back on to the ACC Investment Committee in 2006. Such are his credentials.

Dr Michael Allen

Dr Allen is a geothermal engineer. A considerable portion of Mighty River's power come from geothermal energy in the mighty river catchment. Dr Allen is involved with an organisation called Geothermal New Zealand which promotes exploitation of such energy worldwide. Whether he is entitled to use information he obtains at Mighty River in this organisation and whether he knows what he learnt from where are rather rather vexed questions.

Prue Flacks

Ms Flacks is a solicitor and a member of the Chorus board.

Jon Hartley

Mr Hartley is a chartered accountant and a member of the Chorus board.

Parekawhia McLean

Ms McLean would appear to represent female and Maori interests.

James Miller

The newest director Mr Miller has "me too" qualities. He is on the board Auckland Airport along with Mighty River's chairperson. He is a member of the Financial Markets Authority and along with the chairperson of that authority is a former AMB Ambro executive. AMB Ambro is a Dutch bank which has come and gone from NZ. The FMA is sending off to jail copycat directors who have robbed amateur investors by providing crooked information, but refuses to do anything about members of the Government and the Securities Commission among others who started off the robberies by way of the Feltex IPO to raise funds for cheating at the Olympics. It is completely immoral not to get to the bottom of the problem.

Mr Miller is to be confused with James Millar the Ernst and Young managing partner, Australia, and former area managing partner, Oceania, because he has had associations with that accounting firm and hence is uniquely tarred with the same brush.

Tania Simpson

Ms Simpson would appear to represent female and Maori interests.

Keith Smith

Mr Smith was one of the first presidents of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of NZ in 1989. The NZ Society of Accountants was buried a year or two earlier so that no more members could get into trouble for offences committed under its jurisdiction. That was the sort of mindset at that time and it has not changed much since then. A long time director of The Warehouse Mr Smith must have been involved in that company's very expensive sojourn into Australia. NZ had been introduced to the company over 20 years and to expect Australia to take to it straight away was very fanciful. Putting up notices saying how many people the company employed in Australia was sure to rub the Australians up the wrong way. Without the company a similar number of employees would be employed by other retailers.

END OF ASSIGNMENT

We have it in for the chief coroner, Judge McLean, the police, and the Police Complaints authority, particularly their officer Pieter Roozendaal, for their actions in respect to the death of David Patrick Gaynor.

They all fail to acknowledge the strong possibility if not if not certainty that commercial factors were instrumental in causing David's death.

We in particular cite the NZ Herald article "Brian Gaynor: Investment ethics a million miles away".

The article mentions four businessmen by name. It contains the paragraph "The original prospectus stated that Norgate had invested $20 million of equity in Rural Portfolio but it now appears he has none." And it generally gives Mr Craig Norgate, inaugural Chief Executive of NZ's largest company Fonterra a right roasting. (We won't bring royalty into it.)

We to not wish to discuss the rights and wrongs of this article or any other article of Mr Brian Gaynor, David's father, in this segment. To do so would put us on a long road with too many possibilities for accusations of "conjecture" as Mr Roozendaal would put it. So in the meantime you are welcome to think that we think that these article are a nasty attack by a perhaps jealous Mr Gaynor on highly reputable business people including Mr Norgate.

To reiterate we intend to establish that the articles caused David Gaynor's death without what caused the articles to be written, What caused them to be written although most important is another consideration, one step further down the track.

To peruse a copy of the Coroners report write or email the Justice Department and request the opportunity to inspect coronial information under section 28 of the Coroners Act with respect to the death of David Patrick Gaynor.

The first thing to establish is that the article "Investment ethics a million miles away" is a very serious (arguably vicious) attack on integrity and reputation of Mr Norgate. We ask Messrs McLean and Roozendaal and the unknown police officers to challenge this statement. There is no conjecture, it is self evident.

The second point to establish is that there was an incredible attempt to play down the effects of the content of the article and pretend it did not exist . Nothing seemed to happen as a result. Mr Norgate remains on the executive board of the NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants and nobody of note seems to have suggested that he go from there. There should have been calls for Mr Norgate to "sue the NZ Herald or resign his NZICA post". Nobody of note seems to care a toss. There has been no attempt to resolve who is right and who is wrong with respect to the article.

The third point is the article would have been of considerable interested to year 11 and 12 pupils at Kings College private school in Auckland especially those year 12 classes containing members of the Gaynor or Norgate families. We say David Gaynor could not possibly avoid considerable comment following the publication of the article. We say that the minimal response to the article implies that Mr Gaynor's attack was unwarranted. David would have to cope with this. We say the school community had a responsibility to take action to protect the children caught up in this very public spat The available evidence is that they have done nothing.

We expect it is not the case that the article was "adults business" and children of years 12 and 13 at that school were advised to ignore what they hear on such matters until they were grown up. We expect that these pupils were encouraged to take an active interest in what was going on around them including the business pages of the newspaper.

It must be emphasised that this was and is a very business orientated school. The cost of attending of course makes it quite exclusive. It is hence the province of children of financially successful business people. We refer now to a second NZ Herald article, , this one dated 1 June 2010, just 16 days after the first mentioned million miles article of Mr Gaynor. In this second article we are told that Kings College had a 15 member parent's committee including New Zealand's richest man, Graeme Hart, and businessman Michael Stiassny. The story is about the vexed question of school after-ball functions. A pupil of Kings College, James Webster had recently died after taking alcohol at a party and the police were cracking down on after-ball parties. Plans for a committee supervised, after ball, function were abandoned because of difficulties in securing a licensed venue. We say that it was inevitable the Messrs Hart and Stiassny and many other members of the committee would be aware of the damning "million miles" article and the fact that Messrs Gaynor and Norgate both had offspring in the senior section of the school. Perhaps they tried to do something about it but nothing appears to have eventuated.

David Gaynor died a few hours after attending a pre-ball function hosted by Mr Norgate about 13 months after the publication of the "million miles" article. We say it is scandalous the Coroners report does not even mention the difficulties that the "million miles" and other articles by Mr Gaynor, are likely to have imposed on Mr Gaynor's family. This would especially apply to David who had a school association with the Norgate family and of course with many school pupils of limited maturity who will have read the "million miles" article and because of the lack of official and high profile reaction to it, assume that Mr Gaynor's accusations were unwarranted. We consider that the standard viewpoint at the school would be that Mr Gaynor had a big cheek in making such accusations. We don't think Mr Norgate would be directly responsible for any jibes aimed at David but think he would be out to impress those present with him appearing to have high integrity.

We reject the coroner's report into the death of David Gaynor on several grounds. Firstly it fails to offer any explanation of why David got himself drunk and possibly otherwise drugges prior to attending the Norgate function. The original plan was that Mr Gaynor would drive David and his date to this function but David presumably aborted this to visit some friend or friends who as a foursome were having some drinks with their parents prior to go to the Norgate function. It apparently did not other David that he did not have his date. He seams to have partaken of alcohol there to the extent that he was probably not fit to drive. We say there has to be a motive for this behaviour and the most likely is that he was apprehensive at attending the Norgate function. We say it is very likely that such apprehension is likely to stem from the "million miles and other somewhat similar NZ Herald articles by Mr Gaynor.

As well we reject the finding in paragraphs 52 and 69 that fear of disciplinary action by his school was the motivation for David doing away with himself. This is conjecture if ever there was. Just because it was the impression that David chose to put across does not mean to say it was the correct one. In paragraph 69 we are told that David texted a friend saying that the school had caught him with drugs but that in fact had not happened. He had not created a scene at the ball. His misbehaviour was just enough for him to be asked to leave. Indeed his leaving was probably more to do with concern for his health. If he could mislead about getting caught with drugs he could mislead with the two or three other statements he made by text concerning his motivation. His school disciplinary record as disclosed we say is typical. David had no reason to believe that that would be taken into account and he never said he had. One would expect the motivation for getting drunk to correspond with the motivation for doing away with oneself. And the idea of doing away with oneself is likely to be hatched over time because of a deep seated problem and not be a quick response to a new problem.

We say that David died because of bullying due to his father's low profile in his school community over due to his very serious business accusations together with David's access to alcohol and drugs. The effects of such bullying has climaxed with his attendance at the Norgate function. It is ridiculous to assume that such bullying did not take place given the climate in which he live. No questioning about such activity by either the police or the coroner appears to have taken place.

The statement in paragraph 68 of the coroner's report that the death occurred against a background of no significant life events is absolutely deplorable. We say no young man in the country has had to handle having such an apparent huge moral gulf between that of his father and that of his school including teachers classmates and their parents.

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