Unregistered management schemes wound up
The Tasmanian District Registry of the Federal Court of Australia has issued orders to wind up two unregistered investment schemes that attracted over $5.5 million in investor funds.
The orders were the result of an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) investigation into the activities of the SMS Advising Group and the SMS Administration Group. The common and sole director of each firm, Barbara Cavanough, had been operating the Maypole Secure Income Fund and the Assisted Trading Secure Income Fund when they were both unregistered.
As part of its examination, the corporate regulator discovered that over $1.7 million was invested in the Maypole Secure Income Fund, with the promise of a 10.5 per cent return per annum, and that the amount of money channelled to the Assisted Trading Secure Income Fund was in excess of $3.8 million, with investors expecting a return of between 9 and 15 per cent per annum.
The monies raised by each of the funds ended up being loaned to other Tasmanian companies.
In addition to the scrapping of both investment funds, the court ordered SMS Advising and SMS Administration to be liquidated.
The winding up of the SMS Group comes after ASIC revoked its Australian Financial Services licence and imposed a 10-year ban from providing financial services on Cavanough in May of this year.
The liquidator that has been appointed to wind up both funds is John Gibbons from Ernst & Young.
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