The former chief executive of two failed finance companies has been jailed for two years and seven months.
Paul Cropp was convicted at the High Court in Auckland in April this year of four charges of theft by a person in a special relationship.
The companies he headed - Dominion Finance and North South Finance - collapsed in 2008 owing about 6000 investors $400 million.
The Crown told the court on Thursday that Cropp has shown little remorse.
However in a statement read by his lawyer, Cropp said he unreservedly apologised to investors.
He said he wishes he could go back and revisit the decisions he made and can't stand the fact that people lost their hard-earned money as a result of his actions.
"Not a day or night goes by where I don't think about my decisions with overwhelming remorse which has caused harm to so many investors.
"My actions and the resulting losses and the then failure of the company I was CEO of is something I feel very ashamed of."
John Billington asked Justice Lang to consider a sentence of home detention for his client.
But the judge said he didn't accept that Cropp showed much remorse and said he needed to be sentenced to prison to deter others in a similar position.
