We are writing to inform you that Harbour has joined with other shareholders in a class action against the former directors of CBL Corporation. You may see coverage in the media about this, so we wanted to provide some information to you.

Harbour and Australian-based Argo Investments Limited are both named as representative plaintiffs of the class action.

Shareholders’ interests in the management of the proceedings will be represented by a committee including Harbour Asset Management, Forsyth Barr and Argo Investments.

A number of other institutional shareholders have indicated their interest to sign up as plaintiffs in the action.

The shareholders have engaged an experienced team to act on their behalf, including barristers Justin Smith QC, Mike Colson and Jonathan Orpin-Dowell together with law firm Meredith Connell.  The case will be backed by litigation funding firm LPF, on a success fee basis.

Why have we chosen this course of action?
The collapse of CBL (now in liquidation) represented one of the largest corporate failures in New Zealand’s history. In February 2018 CBL had a market capitalisation of around $747m, and the shareholders have lost everything. Legal action is the only way shareholders can get anything back, and we wish to hold the directors of CBL to account.

After careful analysis and weighing up all options, we have decided to join this CBL class action to seek compensation on behalf of our clients for the losses they suffered.

CBL was held by the Harbour Australasian Equity Fund, Harbour Australasian Equity Focus Fund, and the Harbour NZ Equity Advanced Beta Fund.

If you would like to find out more, here is a link to the class action’s website: https://www.cblclassaction.co.nz/

If you have any questions, please contact us at contactus@harbourasset.co.nz.