A WEST Albury retiree who had $100,000 in the collapsed Banksia Securities will push for a meeting of fellow investors on the Border.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Receivers McGrathNicol will hold four information sessions for debenture holders at Shepparton and Ballarat next month.
Vince Glenane hopes to attend at least one of those meetings, set down for December 14.
“But I thought they would have held one in Albury,” he said.
Mr Glenane said he would get on the phone to try to get the receivers to do so, given the large number of Banksia investors on the Border.
The meetings were announced as McGrathNicol revealed investors would get back 10 to 15 cents in the dollar before Christmas.
Receiver Tony McGrath said this was possible because Banksia had substantial funds invested in liquid term deposits with major banks.
“Maybe it’s a start,” was Mr Glenane’s reaction to the news.
“Naturally you’re never happy with it but I think you’ve just got to take what’s offered.
“They were talking as high as 70 cents in the dollar, so let’s hope this is an introduction to some of the debt being paid out.”
The $650 million collapse of Banksia Securities Limited late last month led to the closure of its Albury branch and with it, the jobs of two employees.
Albury was one of 10 branches to close, including the group’s administration centre at Kyabram and its head office in Melbourne.
About 3000 people had invested money in Banksia, which offered high interest on debentures and lent its funds out as mortgages or commercial property loans.
Mr Glenane said he was disappointed that it took reports in the media to find out about the latest developments — he got the news about the funds dispersal on a website.
“We haven’t received any information apart from the letter we got to say that Banksia had been taken over by the receivers,” he said.
“You hope to get information quickly but going through past exercises like this they do take a long time to resolve.”
Mr Glenane said it could take anywhere between one month to six years to find out whether such an investment would be recouped.
“You don’t know. You’ve just got to be patient,” he said.
“The normal procedure is that anybody who sells you a product, they don’t want to talk to you, which is what I experienced in the past locally with funds we’ve had invested.”
Mr Glenane said he remained hopeful.
“I think Banksia has got quite a variety of products that they’ve invested in and they could not have all gone bust,” he said.