Wevers beefs up Harcourts commercial in Auckland

Ex-Blue Chip chief executive Nick Wevers has emerged as the new Harcourts Viaduct franchise operator in Auckland.

“Mr Wevers has an extensive background in commercial property having been a chief executive of a listed commercial property investment company,” the recent official NAI Harcourts announcement said.

“In the last 12 months, Mr Wevers has been involved in over $60 million dollars of commercial sales in a variety of locations around the North Island, with several of these transactions large-format retail properties.”

He is understood to be working on a couple of big deals, although it remains to be seen if they involved the rumours of a $100 million-plus sale that was doing the rounds of Auckland’s Viaduct bars last week.

“He has participated in several substantial transactions including representing the buyer of a large CBD office building and advising private clients with property acquisitions and disposals," NAI Harcourts general manager Richard Laery says. 

"As a consequence of his many years in the market, Mr Wevers is well known to many corporate and large institutional owners around the country and has also spent three years as national president of the Property Council of New Zealand.” 

Mr Wevers’ association with the Blue Chip group ended in 2004 after a year in the job and just before the major fallout from its collapse.

The former NZI and Marac executive had spent the previous 12 years as boss of listed Capital Properties, overseeing its transition from Government Property Services. He was widely regarded as one of the country’s top commercial property managers.

Good reputation

In 2005 he said he arrived at Blue Chip with a good reputation and felt he had left with the same.

Later, Mr Wevers became chief executive and director of Viaduct Capital before resigning in 2009. Viaduct had been set up just after the government rolled out its retail guarantee deposit scheme to shore up finance companies.

After Viaduct’s subsequent collapse the Serious Fraud Office investigated but found insufficient evidence of fraud. The company owed $7.8 million to investors, which was to be paid out under the government deposit scheme.

The latest receiver’s report for Viaduct Capital says recovery of money owed might be between 20c and 27c in the dollar.

Meanwhile, Mr Wevers has set up the new Harcourts Viaduct team with Ranjan Unka, who has been in commercial and industrial sales and leasing since 2007, Rex Worthington and Tatiana Fuentes.

“As Mr Wevers and the team get settled in the Auckland Viaduct this journey looks to be an exciting one for this new NAI Harcourts team," Mr Laery said.

"The team is now under way marketing Orcacom House in the heart of the Auckland Viaduct. There is no doubt investors will be looking to Mr Wevers and his team to assist in their real estate requirements going forward.”

Mr Laery told NBR NZPI Mr Wevers will be an important layer in expanding the relatively new commercial activities of the brand.

“Having been in business for just over two years NAI Harcourts has been improving with an impressive 1100 transactions written nationally in the past 11 months. It is certainly seen by many as a serious player in the commercial market.”