Hedge fund manager Peter Hempton from
Bronte Capital believes that the assets of Managed Investment Scheme Astarra (or
Trio Capital) are just bits of paper of debatable value and that liquidation of the assets is the only way to determine their true value. The Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners (AIOFP) rejects that claim and want the administrator sacked. Hempton claims that there is a conflict of interest as members of the AIOFP also hold assets in Astarra and they do not want them to be exposed to valuation. The AFIOP
claim that they have been
shown “convincing evidence” proving the location of various tranches of missing investor funds.
Hempton disputes this and had accepted the bet by Peter Johnston of the AFIOP that the missing money will be found. Hempton then set the bet at $100K at odds of 3:2 with the money to held by Morningstar or the SMH. A the
SMH reports
The head of the Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners, Peter Johnston, has decided not put his money on the line over his assurances that the $118 million missing from the Trio Capital managed Astarra Strategic Fund will be recovered.
The Bronte-based blogger John Hempton, who told the Australian Securities and Investments Commission it might be worth investigating the fund and its manager, had challenged Johnston to a $100,000 bet that the money would never be recovered.
''If $100k is too rich for you we can make it lower - but I will not do a trivial bet,'' Hempton said in an email earlier this week. But now that the proposed bet has gone public, Johnston has gone cold.
''I don't have a bet with John Hempton. He's dreaming mate,'' Johnston told CBD yesterday. ''I have no interest in dealing with him or being linked with him in any description,'' he said. Johnston said he was only interested in having a bet if it remained private.
''I was quite happy to do it one-on-one privately with him,'' he said. ''But now that he wants to bring everyone else into it to push his own funds management business, there's no way I'll get involved with that.''
Johnston said he had ''seen sufficient evidence'' that the funds had been tracked down.
He said Hempton could ''keep his money''. ''He'll need it for his defamation case.'' So it looks like the only thing riding on this bet is ego.
As the SMH reports there has been previous exchanges between the two
Along with the details of the proposed bet going public, so too has an email exchange between Johnston and Hempton. Johnston seemed all but assured early last week that the missing Astarra money was about to turn up in Hong Kong.
''You will not be pleased with the developments over the past 24 hours. Stay tuned,'' he told Hempton, a former Platinum Asset Management analyst, last Thursday.
Hempton emailed back on Friday: ''What have you found?''
Johnston replied on Saturday, explaining that ASIC had been given ''hard evidence'' that more than $90 million of Astarra assets had been ''confirmed''.
''We hope you will now stop terrorising the mum and dad investors with your wild statements and when confirmed by ASIC offer an apology for your behaviour,'' he said.
Hempton replied: ''I believe you are believing what you want to believe because - well - that is what people do.''
Johnston replied that ASIC was ''going to check out the spreadsheet details'' with Astarra-Trio principal Shawn Richard, who recently asked his lawyers to look after his passport while he helps the corporate cop with its inquiries.
Johnston then proposed a $100,000 wager. He even offered to lower it to $1000.
When John Hempton was asked
Why would anyone use a financial planner?
he replied
The main reason for using one of the planners and their wraps is that they also provide a superannuation compliance service. Super compliance is expensive and difficult if you do it yourself.
Other people use them because they need their hand held. That is not wrong but the people do need to be careful they are not victims of the unscrupulous elements of the industry
How much money is at stake?
Good question - probably between 100 and 200 million - about 10 thousand people - most losses a small part of retirement savings - some losses near total.
