AIOFP finds $85m of Astarra Strategic assets

Association gets verbal confirmation

By Vishal Teckchandani
Mon 08 Feb 2010

The AIOFP has obtained reports that the bulk of the Astarra Strategic Fund assets are safe, but PPB is still investigating their whereabouts.

The Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners (AIOFP) has received unconfirmed reports that $85 million of the missing $118 million of assets within the Astarra Strategic Fund (ASF) are safe.

AIOFP chief executive Peter Johnston said the association had received verbal confirmation from the Explorer Fund, a fund the ASF had invested in, that it held $75 million of the ASF's money safely.

Another $10 million had been identified through National Australia Trustees (NAT), which acted as the custodian for select assets under Trio Capital - ASF's former responsible entity - and PPB, Trio's administrator.

"Our verbal confirmation has come from [Astarra director] Shawn Richard and the manager of the Explorer Fund, Richard Bell. Once we get formal confirmation we will be passing this information back to ASIC and PPB," he said.

But PPB partner Neil Singleton said Johnston was incorrect.

"We haven't found or identified or are able to say that $85 million of the ASF assets are safe," Singleton said.

"So the Strategic Fund assets - we're still investigating their location and their existence and their value. We don't have any firm findings in that regard at this point in time."

However, $1.5 million held by NAT had been identified, he said.

Johnston's comments came after he revealed the AIOFP had hired a private investigator in Hong Kong to trace Global Consultants and Services Limited (GCSL) chief executive Jack Flader.

GCSL itself gave advice and invested the ASF's money in five different hedge funds around the world and acted as custodian for two of them, he said.

"The firm that we hired the private investigator from is an independent firm that looks at a number of issues and specialises in getting information on financial problems," he said.

"GCSL was the conduit for these hedge funds that ASF invested in, so we are just getting them checked out in Hong Kong through this private investigator.

"They were also the custodian for two of the hedge funds that held some of the ASF's assets and Jack Flader has not been very forthcoming on the state of the affairs of those assets."

The AIOFP had six members whose clients poured $160 million into Trio's suite of products, including the ASF, Johnston said.

He said the $320 million in Trio's other products, which excludes the ASF, had nearly been fully accounted for, according to advice to two AIOFP members from PPB.

Singleton confirmed about $320 million was being held by NAT.

The costs to hire the private investigator were being covered by charging a fee to affected members, Johnston said.

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