Controversially Hanover Finance paid NZ$45.5 million in dividends to Hotchin and Watson in the year ending 30 June 2008.
[9] After a vote over 85% of investors agreed to a debt repayment plan for the return of their capital over a 5-year time scale, predicated on the recovery of the New Zealand property market.
[11] Over the first year of the debt repayment plan, six cents in the dollar was repaid to investors, however the property market had continued to worsen and it appeared the company was heading for receivership.
This transaction resulted in Allied Farmers assuming the net asset position of the Hanover Group finance companies.
[14] As a result of the FMA's announcement former Hanover Finance's chairman Greg Muir issued a media statement saying that "the FMA investigators were given a substantial amount of evidence demonstrating that the directors conducted themselves responsibly, with appropriate rigour, and made judgments they believed were in the best interests of the company and its investors on the information available to them at the time.