Former Gunns chief executive Greg L'Estrange spoke to creditors...

Former Gunns chief executive Greg L'Estrange spoke to creditors in Launceston yesterday.

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FAILED Tasmanian-based forestry company Gunns Ltd owes at least $709 million so far to creditors and investors across the country, says administrator Daniel Bryant.

Mr Bryant said after the former Tasmanian timber giant's first creditors' meeting in Launceston yesterday that the figure was what Gunns had reported to his company PPB Advisory since it was appointed voluntary administrators a fortnight ago.

He said that it did not include what was owed to Managed Investment Scheme investors and growers nationally.

``There are about 49,000 investors in Gunns plantations,'' Mr Bryant said.

``The original investment in total is round about $1.6 billion.''

The bulk of the $709 million is owed to secured creditors - the banks - who are first in line for any money received from the sale of company assets.

About $50 million was owed to unsecured investors, Mr Bryant said.

These made up the bulk of about 150 people who attended yesterday's creditors' meeting.

They represented everyone from cartage and forest contractors, suppliers, road maintenance companies and crane operators to farmers.

Many of them told stories of being on the brink of bankruptcy. None of them believed that they would get any of the money owed to them as the last group in the line to be paid in the cut up of the company.

Another approximately $9 million was outstanding employment entitlements, Mr Bryant said.

He said that there had been considerable interest shown by potential new investors in the collapsed 141-year-old company both shortly before and after administrators and receivers and managers were appointed by Gunns and its major lenders.

He said that there were three options for the future of Gunns - that it be handed back to the control of directors, that the business was restructured on agreement between creditors and administrators or that the company was liquidated.


The first option was rare, he said.

A group of about nine creditors at the meeting formed a creditors' committee to liaise with the administrators and receivers and managers.

The next creditors' meeting is expected to be held before the end of October.