Where did a one-of-a-kind $200,000 boat go after TW Group collapsed?

A vanished boat is the least of it

Receivers BDO are hunting for a Ramco Ultimate 9000 boat and trailer worth roughly $200,000, the only vessel of its model in New Zealand, that went missing after the collapse of TW Group Holdings, TW Civil and RMS Contracting (Wellington). Police and private investigators have been engaged. Insurance claims for the missing assets have been rejected by insurers because of the circumstances under which they disappeared.

BDO’s Andrew McKay and Rees Logan say directors Fred Witton and Ross Troughton have provided no satisfactory response on the boat’s whereabouts. Witton told Stuff: “We’re definitely not to blame. They were all in control of the receivers by the time we left.” On the private investigators who turned up at his home, he said: “I’m an open book. I had nothing to hide.”

The boat matters because insurers won’t cover the gap. Every dollar of missing asset is a dollar creditors won’t see back.

The structure that concentrated the pain

The three firms went into receivership in November 2024 and later into liquidation. RMS Contracting was the public-facing civil works business. TW Civil owned the machinery and leased it to RMS. TW Group Holdings was a non-trading holding entity. It’s the classic asset-lite operating company arrangement, and it worked exactly as it does in every distressed construction file: the equipment company carried the debt.

Combined liabilities at receivership exceeded $19m, with BNZ the most substantially owed creditor. After asset recovery, the most recently assessed shortfall sits at roughly $10m. Earlier reporting noted the companies were reliant on ongoing bank support after buying large amounts of equipment on finance with low utilisation, and that the group owed $526,000 to Inland Revenue and $217,000 in unpaid holiday pay.

The firms had worked on Transmission Gully, Pūhoi to Warkworth, and Peacocke in Waikato, major North Island infrastructure contracts. These were not fly-by-night operators.

Three days after receivership

Here is the detail that should make any creditor sit up. Taiao Civil was incorporated by Witton’s father-in-law, Fred Riding, three days after the other companies went into receivership. Witton and Troughton now work there as senior managers, though Riding is careful to note they are not directors.

Riding told Stuff: “People come on the market and an opportunity presents itself. Fred is not in any form of director role. He is our operations manager.” Asked whether Witton would become a director, he said “the answer is probably not.”

None of this is illegal. Directors are not disqualified from working in their industry after a collapse, and the incorporation timing is a matter of public record on the Companies Office register, not an allegation. But the optics tell trade creditors everything about who bears the cost of a construction failure. The people run the next business. The subcontractors, the taxman and the staff eat the loss.

The subcontractor always loses

That pattern repeated in March 2026 when Teak Construction Group was liquidated owing $7.9m against assets of $6.4m, with Placemakers, Carters, Mico and Hilti among the creditors. Max Key, whose company is owed six figures, said: “We finished the work, we handed over the documentation, we provided the warranties.” Completed work, no payment, suppliers at the back of the queue.

The macro numbers confirm this is systemic. Q1 2026 saw 669 liquidator appointments, up 8.1% on a year earlier. March 2026 was the worst month for liquidations since 2015, with construction leading all sectors at 768 firms liquidated over the year. With 97.3% of construction employers being SMEs and sector sales down about 10.2% over two years, the exposure is spread thin across firms with no cushion.

No quick recovery to lean on

The outlook offers little relief. There were 551 fewer building and construction companies in business at the end of 2025 than at the start. Centrix managing director Keith McLaughlin offered cautious hope that firms “going into arrears at the moment has actually started to plateau”, but QV quantity surveyor Martin Bisset reported most conference attendees had “no pipeline of work beyond the end of the year.”

Waterstone’s analysis warns that elevated insolvency levels are “likely to continue into 2026 and beyond”, and recommends directors and lenders stress-test cashflow for 5-10% revenue falls, watch wage and tax arrears as the leading indicators, and stop assuming 2021-2023 equipment values will hold at sale. That last point is the RMS story in one line. The gap between book value and what machinery actually fetches is where creditors get burned, and independent economist Tony Alexander cautions that even as non-residential construction volume fell 13% in the March quarter, “no boom should be expected.”

If you’re a subcontractor or supplier extending credit to a civil contractor right now, the boat is a warning. Check who owns the assets, watch the arrears, and don’t assume the queue moves in your favour.

Sources

• Where’s the boat? Millions owed and assets reported stolen in major construction firm collapse (2026-07-25)
• Tens of millions owed by troubled civil construction company-linked businesses
• ‘I’m owed over $100k’: Max Key on construction company collapse (2026-03-12)
• Latest company statistics | Companies Office (2026-06)
• Worst March month for liquidations in 11 years (2026)
• Inside New Zealand’s shrinking building and construction industry (2026-07-24)
• Macro snapshot and insolvency tailwinds for 2026 (2026)
• Tony Alexander: What builders can realistically expect once the election dust settles (2026)