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Source: ONE News -
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It will be at least a month before receivers for Strategic Finance can tell investors how much they will see of more than $400 million they are owed.
The company had frozen payouts for more than a year, promising to return all the money but now that looks unlikely.
The company is now in receivership, leaving 13,000 investors with big holes in their pockets.
Investor Diana Dacre had accepted the higher risk that came with higher interest but when the writing was on the wall she voted to put Strategic Finance into receivership.
"Why they thought that by borrowing more money they could actually make their way out of the mess they created...it just didn't seem to make sense," says Dacre.
That was in December 2008 when 97% of investors voted instead to freeze payouts to give Kerry Finnigan, Jock Hobbs and other directors time to ride out the property collapse.
"We did an independent review at the time and we felt that the assumptions on recovery were likely to be optimistic, unfortunately that has proved to be the case," says John Fisk from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Now the company's trustee has exercised its right to bring in receivers.
Finnigan told ONE News he still thinks the company's plan to return funds could have delivered given the five years they asked for to do it.
But one commentator is scathing of that play for time and claims the moratorium was never going to work.
"People should take their pain now...get it over with and avoid the zombie staggering along...unfortunately they have been allowed to stagger on and the pain now is going to be greater," says Bernad Hickey.
