pay thousands and owe millions

Looks like a lot of people purchase Brisconnect contributing shares without understanding the consequences.
This is just another example of needing to do your homework before making the plunge....


Pay thousands and owe millions
Scott Rochfort
December 1, 2008

BRISCONNECTIONS has rejected pleas for it and its underwriters to provide a reprieve to retail investors who have unknowingly exposed themselves to millions of dollars in liabilities after snapping up securities in the listed toll road.

After the plunge in the first instalment in the company from $1 to 0.1 cent since its July listing, retail investors have been able to buy large slabs of the company for small amounts of change.

The only problem is that for every security purchased for 0.1 cent, security holders still have to fund the next two $1 instalments in the company.

Apart from the appearance of two retail shareholders with a collective 20 per cent stake worth about $80,000 with a further $160 million of obligations, BrisConnections has found itself with several highly distressed security holders on its register.

"This is of a magnitude that I can't possibly deal with," one security holder who asked not to be named told the Herald.

"I feel lost. I don't know what I should do at the moment," she said, after discovering only after she made her $1000 investment in the company that she had also purchased a $2 million liability.

The investor conceded the investment was a "stupid mistake" and said she was given no warnings of her obligations when she made the purchase online.

It appears she is not alone.

"We've been contacted by a number of BrisConnections security holders who are beside themselves because of the amount of debt they have taken on board," said Stuart Wilson, the chief executive of the Australian Shareholders Association.

Mr Wilson said urgent action needed to be taken to ensure online brokers such as Commonwealth Securities and E"additional safeguards" that let would-be BrisConnections investors know of their obligations.

Given the growing base of retail shareholders in BrisConnections, there is speculation the underwriters - Macquarie Group and Deutsche Bank - of its next two instalments, worth $817 million, might have no choice but to buy out the toll road with the remaining institutional shareholders.

The instalments are due next April and in early 2010. But at the weekend, BrisConnections continued to hang tough.

"We're not going to start being an apologist for people who don't do their research on this," said a BrisConnections spokesman.

The spokesman said investors who purchased BrisConnections stock without seeking advice were "playing Russian roulette". "It has been the unspoken law of investing since day one," he said.

It appears that BrisConnections security holders would have difficulty selling their shares. There were no trades in the stock on Friday and it is believed Evestors from buying the company's shares.

CommSec said it made no apologies for not warning investors of their obligations.

"While we are concerned about the purchaser's position, the decision to acquire the stock was made by purchaser," said a CommSec spokeswoman in an email to the Herald.

"BrisConnections' ASX Code - BCSCA - indicates that it is a contributing share, it has only been partly paid for and that the shareholder is required to pay the balance outstanding," she said.