ASIC acts on unlicensed schemes

More than 1,000 investors who placed an estimated $80 million in property developments that are alleged to have amounted to unlicensed managed investments schemes (MISs) will be able to make submissions on the future of their investments following action by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

ASIC late last week succeeded in having the Federal Court declare that 11 joint venture property projects associated with Melbourne-based company director Mark Ronald Letten were unregistered MISs.

The regulator said Damian Templeton and Phillip Hennessy of KPMG had been appointed receivers and managers of the schemes and 43 related companies.

It said the court had also appointed receivers and managers to the property of a further four projects, however it had not yet been determined whether they were unregistered MISs.

ASIC has alleged that Letten promoted and sold investments in commercial property joint venture projects that should have been registered as MISs under the Corporations Act. The regulator said it believed more than 1,000 investors had placed more than $80 million in the projects.

ASIC said it was also seeking final declarations that Letten carried on a financial services business without holding an Australian Financial Services Licence and that he operated each MIS in circumstances where the schemes should have been registered under the act.

It said it had also applied for orders that Letten be permanently restrained from operating a financial services business and from promoting or operating MISs.

Documentation provided by ASIC revealed that the MISs in question ranged from shopping centres in regional Victoria to tourism resorts in north Queensland.