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Third OPI director admits charges

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On the day two former directors of a failed property finance company were sentenced over a dodgy prospectus and advertising, a third has admitted charges he was planning to defend.

OPI Pacific Finance's Craig Robert White, in the High Court at Auckland, on Friday admitted two charges of misleading investors.

The charges regard distributing an advertisement and a prospectus, both of which contained untrue statements, in 2007.

White and another former OPI director David Anderson were due to go to trial in October, but now White will be sentenced next week.

OPI collapsed in 2009 owing 10,000 investors about $NZ247 million ($A218.89 million).

Earlier on Friday, fellow former directors Mark Lacy and Jason Maywald were each sentenced on two charges over the false statements in the prospectus and advertisement.

Lacy and Maywald were each given sentences of 200 hours community service and ordered to pay $A100,000 in reparations by Justice Pamela Andrews.

The Financial Markets Authority investigated OPI in 2013 over statements in a prospectus the FMA said misrepresented the company's health by failing to disclose the effect of a $A100m advance it had made to a related Australian finance company, MFS Pacific Investments Pty Limited.

In sentencing them, Justice Andrews said the men had displayed carelessness, but it was not at the level of "gross negligence".

OPI provided finance to commercial property developers and investors.

It was tipped into receivership in 2009 and then liquidation two years later.

As at July this year, investors had been repaid NZ30.23 cents in the NZ dollar.

Lacy and Maywald will travel to New Zealand from Australia to serve their sentences in five-day blocks later in the year.

FMA acting director of enforcement Paul O'Neil said the sentencing showed the weight of responsibility directors had to keep investors properly informed.

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Director of failed property finance company admits two charges of misleading investors.

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