PHOTO: Richard Yan, pictured outside the High Court in Auckland, says he never lost confidence in Mainzeal. Photo: Nikki Mandow
Richina, the Chinese parent company of failed New Zealand construction company Mainzeal, owns assets potentially worth billions of dollars, according to information from the ongoing High Court hearing in Auckland. Investors in Richina, including Mainzeal directors Richard Yan and Dame Jenny Shipley, now have stakes worth millions – on paper at least. Yet despite significant loans from Mainzeal to Richina, no one could keep the New Zealand company afloat, or avoid losses to unsecured creditors of more than $115 million.
In 1980 a fresh-faced Chinese student arrived in Auckland, one of the first young people from Communist China to get a scholarship to the capitalist west after the end of the Cultural Revolution.
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