Neil Andrew Pentland denied shooting his marketing manager Philip Carlyle four times in the head on April 13, 1997.

The 47-year-old’s body was found in the soundproof air-conditioning plant room in the Robina office.

He had been shot four times in the head.

Brisbane Supreme Court Justice Glenn Martin handed down a verdict of not guilty in the judge-only trial on Tuesday.

Carlyle was employed by a start-up internet company owned by Pentland and his wife. He was not a shareholder, but the men had agreed he could buy shares in the future.

Justice Martin said he did not accept the prosecution’s case that the relationship between Pentland and Carlyle had been deteriorating enough to provide a motive.

“The material demonstrates that they had a number of disagreements … But those disagreements were nothing more than one might expect from persons engaged in an enterprise with considerable pressure upon them and in which each saw the prospect of considerable success,” he said in his published reasons.

He also found an insurance policy the two men had taken out that would pay out $500,000 if either one died wasn’t a motive.

“To kill Mr Carlyle, in order to obtain the payout from the insurance policy, when, on any reasonable view of the evidence, the defendant thought that they were on the cusp of great success, makes no sense at all.”

Carlyle had left behind a trail of failed businesses, disappointed investors and angry creditors when he started to work with Pentland.

“He was, at times, including in the year before his death, a heavy gambler,” Justice Martin said.

He had also been threatened with violence, had moved his family following a threat and his wife had once been threatened at knife-point over a debt.

-AAP