Collapsed Dunedin ticket company owed millions to creditors

A recent liquidation report into New Zealand’s Fortress Information Systems - known by its trading Ticket Rocket and previously known as TicketDirect​​ - has revealed that, as of 27th February this year, the Bank of New Zealand - a secured creditor - was owed a total of $5.56 million either directly or through cross guarantees against the companies.

The Dunedin-based Fortress Information Systems, owned by Canadian Matt Davey, were placed into receivership and liquidated in mid 2020.

Affiliated companies - Dash Group and Dash Tickets New Zealand - were also placed under receivership.

The demise of the companies followed the cancelation and postponement of ticketed events during Coronavirus lockdowns in April and May 2020, with requests for requests for refunds surging.

The collapse left ticket holders out-of-pocket by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As reported by New Zealand news website Stuff, the liquidation report also noted that the collapsed companies held $535,000 in a bank account from ticket sales between 11th June 2020 and 31st August 2020. The majority of those funds, which should have been held on trust, had been distributed.

It also noted that employees of the collapsed companies received about $9,700 in pay, but had preferential claims of around $25,000 outstanding.

Another preferential claim, from Inland Revenue totalled $444,000, and comprised of outstanding GST and PAYE deductions.

The report noted outstanding funds owed to contract holders and promoters, as well as refunds owed to ticket holders were generally unsecured claims.

However, those claims would not be unsecured to the extent that ticket proceeds were held on trust. But the claims from contract holders/promoters and ticket holders were ‘’substantially more’’ than the funds held by the respective companies.

In total, the liquidator had received unsecured creditor claims of $2.29 million from contract holders/promoters, of which $1.83 million was owed to ticket holders.

$187,000 of chargebacks were processed by the ticket holders’ merchant provider, but $1.64 million of refunds remained.

In 2021, BNZ was granted a summary judgement against owner and Director Matthew Robert Davey for $3.8 million, plus interest. An order was made for costs, which Davey later appealed.

Davey, who moved to Australia at the time of the collapse, had his application for an extension of time to appeal declined.

That Court of Appeal decision noted Davey has been engaged in other legal proceedings, in particular, bankruptcy proceedings, in both Australia and New Zealand which it stated “have taken up his time and attention."

Davey gave a range of reasons for the delays, including that he was prevented from travelling to his native Canada to access business documents held on a laptop in storage.

Images: The Ticket Rocket brand was introduced in 2018 (top) and ticketing companies owned by Matt Davey, a former part-owner of Super Rugby’s Highlanders, were placed into receivership and liquidated in 2020 (below).