TIMBERCORP NEEDS OUR SUPPORT----IN HELPING THE 18000 PLUS...

TIMBERCORP NEEDS OUR SUPPORT----IN HELPING THE 18000 PLUS INVESTORS THAT MIRRORS gtp IT IS IN OUR INTEREST

CONTACT THE REPORTERS ,I HAVE AND THEY ARE VERY GOOD AND WANT YOUR VIEWS---GET IT IN THE MEDIA FOR THE INVESTORS IN TIMBERCORP AND GTP


S-justice: former Timbercorp chiefs may profit from the sale of the almond plantations.

November 25, 2009
FORMER directors should not be allowed to gain one cent from the sale of Timbercorp's assets, says PETER HUNT

Natural justice would dictate former Timbercorp founders and directors get nothing from the carve-up of the Timbercorp Primary Infrastructure Fund.

Why should they, given they encouraged 18,500 Australians to pour $2 billion into Timbercorp's failed managed investment schemes?

Investors are left with nothing, or worse, owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the ANZ Bank.

Many were encouraged by Timbercorp to borrow 90 per cent of the money they needed to cover grossly inflated almond, olive or bluegum plantation MIS fees.

One investor told The Weekly Times he was one of six friends who faced bankruptcy if the bank took action to recover its money. Thousands of other Australians face similar action.

So imagine the MIS investors' reaction to Timbercorp directors standing to reap millions of dollars from the sale of TPIF almond, citrus and water assets worth about $180 million.

Anger would be an understatement. Rage and despair is a more accurate description.

Sure there is still uncertainty about how much Robert Hance and other former directors will receive, but the reality is these men should not gain one cent from this catastrophe.

Forget about the law, this is about morality.

Mr Hance and his friends have already gained more than enough from investors and Australian taxpayers in the past 18 years.

In the past four years alone, Mr Hance collected almost $3 million in remuneration.

The reality is investors, banks and Australian tax payers have poured $2 billion into Timbercorp's schemes, only to see the assets sold off to foreign interests for far less than their book value.

So where did the $2 billion go? It's a huge sum.

Unfortunately, nobody really knows. However, there are at least some answers.

There's the commissions financial advisers and accountants earned on their naive clients' investments in these MISs.

There's the inflated lease payments that went to the actual property owners, including TPIF.

Investors had to indirectly lease TPIF's almond orchards and water, in return for the "harvesting rights" on the trees.

There's the management and establishment fees, which were in part distributed to property managers such as Select Harvests (almond), Boundary Bend Estate and the Costa Management Group (tablegrapes). Past analyses by The Weekly Times have shown Timbercorp charged two-to-three times the commercial rate to establish bluegum plantations and tablegrape lots.

The large establishment and management fees earned by Timbercorp allowed it to pay inflated prices for land.

In the end, the greatest tragedy from the Timbercorp fiasco is that Australian taxpayers contributed 40-45 cents in the dollar that was poured into these schemes.

That's the amount most investors were able to withhold from the ATO and divert into MISs.

The big question has always been why the Australian Tax Office failed to audit the grossly inflated MIS establishment and management fees to ensure they reflected commercial reality.

The ATO has steadfastly refused to answer that question.

Grower investors and tax payers are the biggest losers in this fiasco.

In contrast, Mr Hance and other directors have walked away from this mess with up to $1.2 million in their back pockets.

•Peter Hunt is a senior Weekly Times reporter
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