As the trustee for a SMSF who had a good sized holding in TEN, I think this exercise has reinforced a view that I have been developing for sometime. The risk of this asset class to the average SMSF is well beyond that which can be reasonably considered to be satisfactory. There seems to be some question as to whether TEN's final trading price of 16c was fair and reasonable, particularly when the company's shares were apparently valued at $1.50 not that long ago and under not too dissimilar conditions (all that has really happened is that the licence fees have been reduced). This situation would be highlighted if TEN suddenly became handsomely valuable subsequent to any restructure where the decision-makers had not changed substantially but remarkably the company's fortunes did after their acquisition. Clearly, I think that the regulators need to give serious consideration to banning SMSFs from trading in shares if the share value of their investments can be reduced to nil under such dramatic circumstances. Many SMSFs are run by non-professional people who do not have access to high-quality information or understanding and are therefore vulnerable to the behaviour of better informed and better resourced corporate entities, such as have had a role in TEN, as an example. At least with real estate (as an alternative investment-class to shares) that SMSFs should be increasingly encouraged to resort to, if the value of the property falls, then it probably will not be by more than 5-10% and will generally recover in the medium term. Perhaps the whole superannuation industry might benefit from a re-thinking in this regard. There will be many people being forced to subsist on the pension as a result of the type of behaviour that we have seen with TEN as just one example, albeit a highlighted one, and I believe that it has to stop.
TEN Price at posting:
16.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
