Mutual Finance, one of the smaller finance companies in New Zealand, is now under new ownership after a company associated with investor Paul Bublitz bought an 80 per cent stake in the company, and is set to buy the balance 20 per cent by October.Bublitz founded Strategic Finance in 1999 and retired as a director after selling the company to Allco in 2006. He founded Hunter Capital in 2005. Hunter is the shareholder of Argus Capital, which bought the stake in Mutual Finance.Strategic Finance is among a crop of recent government-guaranteed finance companies that filed for receivership in March.The sale of the first 60 per cent stake to Argus took place in December 2009, and a further 20 per cent was acquired in March. Mutual Finance is covered by the government's retail guarantee scheme until October 12.  While a change of ownership doesn't affect the guarantee status, the government can withdraw the guarantee if a participating financial institution engages in "inappropriate conduct" such that the benefit of the extended guarantee may be available to persons not intended to receive that benefit.The government used this clause in the lone instance of withdrawal of the guarantee to Viaduct Capital in April last year following the purchase of that company by Phoenix - an investor associated with Paul Bublitz.  Among the reasons Treasury had cited was its view that "the transactions surrounding the purchase of Viaduct appear to have been designed primarily to advance the interests of Mr Bublitz."A Treasury spokesman did not indicate if a new ownership would affect Mutual's guarantee, merely saying the guarantee remained intact as of now.Interestingly, under the extended guarantee scheme if a financial institution comes under the control of another person, the government can withdraw the guarantee if the Crown had not "first approved" of the person.As of now, Mutual Finance is not eligible to apply for the extended guarantee because it doesn't have a credit rating. The company is exempt from the mandatory requirement of holding a rating because its assets are below NZ$20 million.Mutual had about NZ$5 million of debentures on its books as of November 30 with NZ$4.5 million of these classified as current as of that date. Mutual Finance had launched a new prospectus in early March to borrow up to NZ$20 million. Last week, the company's website showed it was offering an attractive interest rate of up to seven per cent for guaranteed deposits for term up to October 2010, and about 9.5 per cent for non-guaranteed deposits for an 18-month term. The website is no longer accessible.