SolarZero workers installing panels Photo: Supplied/SolarZero
NZ Green Investment Finance (NZGIF) was only given limited time to come up with a proposal to help SolarZero, its board chair says.
The company was put into liquidaton last week by its owner Blackrock, owing more than $40 million to creditors. Staff are owed holiday pay and pay for their notice periods.
NZGIF had set up a taxpayer-funded lending facility of $145m for SolarZero, of which it said about $115m had been drawn down.
Green Investment Fund 'extremely frustrated' by Blackrock
Finance Minister Nicola Willis summoned NZGIF to a meeting on Thursday to discuss the loan and has said she expected it to be publicly accountable. She told media she still had questions about the due diligence involved, the monitoring of the investment and the structure of the lending.
NZGIF chair Cecilia Tarrant told Nine to Noon on Friday the first the board heard of potential trouble was in early November
She said Blackrock came to NZGIF asking for help and with proposals.
But she said it was only two weeks later that it said it was liquidating the company and NZGIF had not had time to assess the options.
"We required time and information to assess those proposals and make the right decision with taxpayer money."
She said NZGIF's priority was to look after taxpayers' investments and make sure SolarZero customers were also looked after.
Tarrant said there had been no reason to suspect there was a problem with SolarZero before Blackrock made its approach.
"This was a shock to us... Understand we're not lending to SolarZero but we are lending on the receivables.
"It's like if you've lent money on a car. While the car is operating you don't have the right to look under the hood. We would be talking to SolarZero, payments were coming through as expected. There was no reason for alarm."
There were four lenders that had offered money to fund the batteries and solar panels that SolarZero had installed on people's homes, she said. Payments for that debt came from payments from the homeowners. The new provider Verofi was now collecting the payments from customers.
She said NZGIF had always thought that Blackrock considered SolarZero a long-term hold.
Plans for a $2 billion climate fund with Blackrock, hailed last year by then-prime minister Chris Hipkins as the first of its kind, had been shelved.
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