Kerr’s ‘outrageous’ $A200m lawsuit, Habitual Fix hits the skids, NZ's opportunity as Brexit begins

In today's NBR Print Edition: ACC and Crown Asset Management (CAML) are among the targets of a conspiracy cross-claim filed by Torchlight GP, a firm controlled by NBR Rich Lister George Kerr, Tim Hunter writes. At the heart of the litigation is the desire of “a minority of limited partners” – including the two government entities – to remove Mr Kerr as the manager of Torchlight, a fund in which they have invested a combined $32 million. The lawsuit, which may claim damages of $A200 million, is “completely outrageous,” CAML chairman Gary Traveller insists.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May triggered the mechanism known as article 50 this week to officially begin the UK’s slow motion but irrevocable departure from the EU. Two years from now, the UK will be independent again. In the meantime, it needs to organise new trade relations with its international partners. So where does New Zealand fit into these lofty plans? Nathan Smith reports.

Fresh food chain Habitual Fix is the latest franchise to be hit with complaints by disgruntled former owners. An NBR investigation has revealed at least five of the franchise’s stores have gone into liquidation in the past two years. Another two failed in 2011 and 2013 respectively. One former franchisee says the problems suffered by his Wellington store, which was liquidated late last year, are in no way unique to him. Campbell Gibson reports.

Calida Smylie finds Chinese visitor numbers to New Zealand have declined markedly in the past six months. Combined with an increasing preference for independent travel over group package tours, this spells bad news – and increasingly unhappy returns – for local retailers.

Now John Key has ridden into the proverbial sunset, leaving the New Zealand political scene in his dust, people are pondering the question perennially asked about the Lone Ranger: Who was that masked man? Political editor Rob Hosking writes it’s certainly one Mr Key’s partisan enemies never quite worked out a satisfactory answer to.

Sally Lindsay reports Auckland residential development land prices are expected to plummet over the next two years as trading banks pull out funding. There are plenty of developers with land and resource consents but banks’ tightening lending criteria are starving them of essential equity. “If a speculator buys land, gets resource consents and then tries to flick it on, they are stuffed,” one player says. But what is dire for developers could be good for the housing market in the medium term.

All this and more in today's NBR Print edition. Out now