Recovery of collapsed finance company books starts

Cynotech, the company headed by former Equiticorp boss Allan Hawkins is starting to recover money from the loan books of collapsed finance companies Western Bay andNational Finance 2000.

The company posted a 2.9% gain in first-half profit as debtors began repayments on impaired loans that had previously been valued at nil.

Net income rose to $1.3 million in the six months ended June 30 from $1.2 million a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Revenue rose 2% to $7.75 million.

"We're in a very difficult sector at the moment, but we think the result is pretty good," Hawkins told BusinessWire. "Our bad debt provisions were pretty hard" in recent years, and this left the company well-placed compared to others in the finance sector, he said.