Silver Creek’s Ross Speakman revealed as a former jailed fraudster
A key member of the Silver Creek team trying to build 580 new houses in Queenstown was jailed for fraud after the 1987 stock market crash in one of the most spectacular cases to emerge from that era. More recently he was the sole director and a shareholder of the franchisee for Signature Homes in Queenstown, Coronet Peak Construction Limited, which collapsed in 2019 owing creditors more than $1.8 million according to the final liquidators' report. Ross Haddon Speakman keeps a very low profile and not much, if anything, survives in internet searches relating to his past. Not a single image of Mr Speakman can be found online. However, Crux has discovered that Mr Speakman's conviction for fraud was arguably the most flamboyant business failure at a time when many ambitious New Zealand business figures went down in flames. In researching this story, we have attempted to make contact with Mr Speakman at the $4.5 million house he occupies on the slopes of Queenstown’s Coronet Pea...