Wellington, Sept 10 NZPA - Former Justice Minister Doug Graham says he is "totally comfortable" with his role in the governance of failed finance company Lombard Finance and Investment.

In a recent update to investors, receivers John Fisk and John Waller of PricewaterhouseCoopers said they were aware of several concerns about Lombard Finance's activities before its receivership in April, and a thorough investigation was under way.

Sir Doug, a former National government justice minister, was Lombard's chairman but resigned, with director and former Labour government justice minister Bill Jeffries, a week after the company went into receivership.

"I am satisfied that we were managing the book as well as could be expected in the circumstances," Sir Doug told The New Zealand Herald.

He said all of the company's documents, including its amended prospectus, filed to the Companies Office on Christmas Eve last year, were prepared carefully with legal advice.

"I would be surprised if they (the receivers) can find anything untoward. I would obviously be very concerned if they did."

Sir Doug pointed to the high number of finance companies that had fallen over or defaulted.

"I'm not proud of it but the circumstances -- the combination of credit crunch, high interest rates, the collapse in the market and panic of the investors, if you have all of those things nobody's going to survive," he said.

In the new letter to investors, the receivers said they had revised their estimate of recoveries to the 3900 secured debenture investors, owed $111 million.

The estimate was now for a range of between 19 percent and 40 percent of the original investment, down from a range of 21 percent to 44 percent estimated in May.

The receivers also said it would be prudent for investors to assume they would not receive any distributions from the receiverships within the next six months.

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