Byerley Park goes to liquidators with $16 million in debt and unpaid staff

Valuable land, worthless business

On 11 September 2026 liquidators put Byerley Park, a luxury racehorse breeding and training centre near Karaka in South Auckland, on the market by deadline tender. The first liquidators’ reports confirm the two companies behind the facility owe more than $16 million to creditors, and that figure is a floor, not a ceiling, because Inland Revenue has yet to confirm what it is owed.

The land is genuinely prime. It sits beside New Zealand’s premier bloodstock sales precinct. But land quality is not solvency, and the business built on it was never viable. That is the lesson here, and it has nothing to do with horses.

Never a profit, always a bailout

The High Court judgment of 7 August 2026 is blunt. Byerley Park Ltd carried $2.773 million in net liabilities as at 31 March 2024 and racked up $4.2 million in losses over four years, even after receiving $3.4 million in beneficiary income from related trusts. Strip that related-party income out and the accumulated losses balloon to $7.6 million. The court records that the company never made a profit from its equestrian operations.

The sister company, Karaka Estate Ltd, was no healthier, sitting on $0.77 million in net liabilities despite $1.86 million pumped in from related parties. Expert accounting evidence from Grant Graham concluded both companies were balance-sheet insolvent and unable to pay debts as they fell due, surviving only on ad hoc discretionary related-party funding.

That is the fatal design flaw. A business kept alive by family cash injected at will is not a business, it is a subsidy with a company registration. The moment the relationship providing the money breaks, the whole thing collapses, and it did.

A decade of feud, then no way out

The two companies were set up in 2000 to hold Kingseat land earmarked for development, with two trusts established in 2004 to acquire neighbouring properties, according to Newsroom’s August 2026 account. The land was never developed. It became a horse operation instead, and the family fell out over it for more than a decade.

Henriette Nakhle, Honorary Consul for Lebanon in New Zealand, accuses her son Daniel of drawing down family money to “prop up” the failing companies and pursue a “loss-making passion project”. Daniel denies any impropriety and claims a family agreement entitles him to Nakhle Group assets worth more than $60 million.

Justice Powell found the relationship had broken down irretrievably. A January 2026 preliminary hearing had already established the dispute could not be settled through arbitration or mediation. There was no independent board, no arm’s-length trustee, and no exit mechanism that did not require both sides to agree. When they would not, the court did it for them.

The manoeuvre courts don’t reward

One detail is worth every business owner’s attention. On the eve of an April 2026 hearing, Daniel registered a new company, Ardmore Finance Ltd, and bought more than $7 million in Nakhle Group family debt from Westpac, then demanded immediate repayment. The judgment confirms $7,746,068.20 in Nakhle Group debt was assigned on 28 April 2026. It did not work. The judge rejected Daniel’s push for receivership, finding it would “markedly advantage” him over his parents and siblings. Buying up related-party debt to force a hand is exactly the kind of move courts see through.

Who actually pays

Staff are already out of pocket, owed more than $80,000 in unpaid holiday pay. Byerley Park Ltd owes more than $13.7 million and Karaka Estate Ltd more than $2.5 million. Liquidators Paul Vlasic and Derek Ah Sam of Rodgers Reidy are trading the business short term while the property is marketed.

The timing sits inside a broader squeeze. Companies Office data published 10 August 2026 shows 710 liquidator appointments in the quarter to 30 June 2026, up 4.9% on a year earlier, with 262 companies liquidated in July 2026 alone. Byerley Park is not a trading collapse like most of those, but the outcome is identical, and it is the ordinary creditors and staff, not the feuding principals, who wait longest to see anything back.

The deadline tender will now test what prime Karaka equestrian land fetches in a soft market. Whatever it makes, the IRD claim still to land means the recovery gap could widen before it narrows. Governance, not bloodlines, was what this business needed.

Sources

• Nakhle family dispute: Byerley Park racehorse centre for sale amid $16m liquidation debt (2026-09-11)
• Inside the $40m family feud that liquidated two Nakhle firms (2026-08-11)
• Rich-list Nakhle family court battle: Judge liquidates insolvent horseracing companies (2026-08-10)
• Auckland Nakhle family in $17m court battle; judge clears way for liquidation case (2026-01-06)
• High Court judgment – CIV-2025-404-1548 (Nakhle liquidation case) (2026-08-07)
• Latest company statistics – Companies Office (2026-08-10)