Post by NZBC on Jul 4, 2012 18:58:49 GMT 12
A CHINESE BANKRUPT. TRIED TO RUN A BOARDING HOUSE. LOST £4OO IN TWELVE MONTHS. A meeting of the creditors in the bankrupt estate of a Chinese named Charlie Lee was called this afternoon at the Official Assignee's office, when Mt.'W. S. Fisher presided. The bankrupt's schedule showed unsecured creditors £1,212 13/11. The assets were, stock in trade £70, book debts estimated to produce £35, and cash in hand £14 6/8, leaving a deficiency of £1,093 9/3. The bankrupt stated that he started business as a laundryman at Rotorua in 1909, with a capital of £40 and a partner whom he bought out in about twelve months' time for £80, and had since carried it on. In 1912 he started a fruit shop in partnership with Wong Sang in Hinemoa Street. They bought out Hang Sang Nam in Arawa Street for £64. Later the bankrupt bought out his partner for £60. After the business had been running for some time it owed him £90, and when it was closed it had cost him £150. In October, 1912, the bankrupt bought the Windsor boarding house for £425, paying down £225 and giving a bill of sale for the balance. He employed a friend of his wife to run the business after he had put in £100 worth of .furniture, crockery, and cutlery. The takings of the house were £1,400 and the expenditure £1300, making a loss of £400 in a little over a year. The bankrupt blamed the smallpox scare, the strike, and the war for the failure of the boarding house, as it checked the tourist traffic. He borrowed another £150 on the furniture. He tried in vain to sell the boarding house, and regretted he was not given time to reduce his indebtedness from the profits of the laundry after he got rid of the house. Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 129, 31 May 1916, Page 6