The collapse of agribusiness firms Great Southern and Timbercorp has wiped out more than 50 per cent of the market, with preliminary data suggesting almost no investor intends to reinvest in the sector.
“I don’t want to play down how seriously important they were, the collapse of Great Southern and Timbercorp took out over 50 per cent of the market in that particular sector,” Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) chair Bernie Rippoll said.
More than 60,000 investors either lost their funds or whose funds are tied up in the court or yet to loose their funds, Ripoll told delegates at this week’s Association of Financial Advisers conference on the Gold Coast.
However, while investors’ financial loss is of concern, the agribusiness sector’s greatest loss is investor confidence, something that may be irreversible, he said.
“The damages the collapse of those two particular organisations have done to that sector is not quite irreversible but it is massive, it’s on a large scale,” Ripoll said.
“I assure you when we get the data back in from that sector there will be almost no body reinvesting in that sector because of those two particular collapses.”
On 16 May, Great Southern went into administration, a month later on 23 April Timbercorp went into administration.
