A further 800 Feltex shareholders have joined a class action seeking to recover losses following the carpet maker’s demise.

The new claimants join 1800 shareholders, who had already opted in to the action group, brought by plaintiff Eric Houghton and organised by Tony Gavigan’s Joint Action Funding.

They are targeting seven former directors of Feltex at the time of the initial public offer in May 2004, the vendors Credit Suisse First Boston Asian Merchant Partners and Credit Suisse Private Equity and joint lead float managers, First NZ Capital and Forsyth Barr.

The Feltex share float raised more than $250 million. But two years later the firm was placed in liquidation with debts of up to $40 million.

More than 8000 people, mostly “mum and dad” investors put an average $15,000 into the company.

There were also large investors, including Australian trust management company, Hunter Hall, which lost $17 million.

The plaintiffs claim statements in the prospectus were misleading and there were breaches of the Fair Trading Act and the Securities Act as well as negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.

A Securities Commission inquiry found the prospectus had not breached the securities legislation and was not misleading.

The defendants, who deny the claims, have asked for extra time on their discovery and have been granted an extension to the end of this month.

Mr Gavigan said the extra 800-plus shareholders opted in following a renewed campaign last month.

“We had a good story to send out to all the people who hadn’t opted in in the middle of 2010 and we also had the opportunity to cross-reference different databases that we hadn’t had,” he said.

“We wrote to the people we identified who, on average, made a loss of about $10,000.”

“It’s been very encouraging that people who sat on the sidelines have taken the opportunity to come on.”

He said there was a court call over this week and the group was hoping to get a first hearing before Easter.

In 2008 the defendants unsuccessfully sought to have the action struck out on grounds of “champerty,” claiming that Mr Gavigan stood to make substantial financial gain in success fees should the action succeed.