Wow! Such undying unadulterated faith in AH.
Bravo, let's hope you are right.
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What utter rubbish.
So Hubbard is untouchable?
If the public servants do nothing because they have done nothing in the past against other finance companies, they must not take action now when there's concerns?
The Securities Commission and SFO better have sold evidence to take such a drastic action. One senses that some serious soul-searching was done before this action was taken.
Always remember what AB all time legend Colin Meads said : "SOLID AS".
The main concern of the government from what I hear is they want to keep all the marbles in one bag before the marbles become lost. Certainly noticeable tonight that we are all mortal and Alan is not the man he once was....
[QUOTE=Balance;308604]What utter rubbish.
QUOTE]
I will treat that comment with the contempt it deserves.
This move has got to be all about saving the taxpayer from a couple of billion dollars in lost assets. They will wind up SCF over the next few years, us taxpayers will lose a bit of a cash, but SCF shareholders should get most of their money back.
Yes it's drastic action, no Alan Hubbard isn't untouchable and these are extraordinary times. Who knows what skeletons are in the closet down in Timaru. This doesn't have much to do with Hotchin/Watson and co because shareholders in those companies opted for moratorium instead of recievership when they could have nailed them to the wall. And those comapanies weren't underwritten by 'we' the taxpayer.
Mr D
Now thats a very good question - indeed they were no where to be seen late 2006 early 2007. I started the Divestor thread in Sept 07 and even then it wasn't until Feb 2008 that Leanne Dalziel finally got Labour off its fat bum and introduced the Financial Advisors Bill.
But look at the alarm bells: Nathans, National and Provincial went under in 06 but the "biggie" - Bridgecorp went under in 07. The punters had the alarm bells ringing but still they got sucked in by the TV and newspaper advertisements and high interest rate offerings - until the the Finance Companies cottoned onto that risk profile and started dropping their rates so the punters got less for higher risk. No number of Civil Servants could have stopped the rush of punters towards these finance companies.
But eventually the government did move. They got the Financial Advisor Bill through so the punters should have more faith in the quality of their advice and the Deposit Guarantee scheme then went and undermined that by backing any old punt. And even then the punters (in Hanovers case) kept chasing the lure of the golden dollar - what does it take to prevent people from hurting themselves?
So now we have a "Concerned" Civil Servant who is finally prepared to make a move - and you cry foul! And the AH followers (just like Buffet disciples) follow blindly on.
I am confident the govt would not have moved on AH and his wife if there wasn't something of substance to back their concerns. The question remains "how much substance".
I'm sure there are many punters who reckoned the sun shone out of Alan Hawkins (I did!), Doug Edgar Somers, Hotchin and definitely Watson, Petricevic and Madoff, Versalko, William Gibson, Peter Marshall, Mark Bryers - how many more do I need to name?. But eventually a concerned civil servant, in some cases made a made. Regardless of the CSS the punters view of these people is now a little different - but it sure took a heck of a lot to open their eyes.
I dont follow SCF but my views are:
- It is very tragic that his has happened to AH but that doesn't mean that it is unwarranted.
- the fact that nothing happened re Bridgecorp etc is irrelevant. You need to fix your mistakes at some point and considering the Government has already provisioned $500m, this seems a good place to start.
- AH may have done nothing wrong but he obviously hasn't satisfied the officials since the complaint was investigated back in February. The softly - softly approached didn't work so they had to go to this. It was a damned if they do and damned if they don't situation i think. Better to try something and fail rather than do nothing and guarantee failure.
The reality is that statutory management of Allan Hubbard is statutory management of SCF. After all, Allan controls Southbury, Southbury controls SCF ... and the government controls Allan.
I expect that things are probably going well, in SCF.
I expect that there is some pressure on Allan given the guarantees he made, probably through Aorangi, to guaranteerite SCF defaulting loans. I would expect that this aspect of Aorangi operations has attracted the concern of the SFO.
Clearly, anyone interested in a SCF stake now believes they can drive a harder bargain. Hence it is bad news that these potential capital inflows will be delayed.
Clearly, debenture investment and rollover in SCF has suffered a knock. Based on the market reaction to the news of Hubbard's investigation - perhaps this will be inconsequential.
I think a deal to refloat SCF will happen. I am torn between feeling that Allan Hubbard should have been left to do the honorable thing - restructure SCF with Southbury taking the hit; and worry that there is a case to be answered under the Companies and Crimes act.
From an investor perspective ... unless you are hot money looking for 8%, a government guarantee and a complex life .... my first choice of SCF010's are still way too expensive, SCFHA's are insanely risky.
I think, in reality you'll find the beauracrats have more than enough on their plates at the moment - there are loads of directors in the courts and many more under investigation. I don't think they need any more work to justify their wage. I'm no fan of beauracracy but its not a bad thing that they do have the energy to do what they have done - on the face of it they are trying to protect $00's m in the Trusts as well as the spin off effects into SCF. This whole house of cards has been very shaky for a long time but there are many people working hard at trying to keep it all together. If these beauracrats can save the trust depositors and the tax payers who will fork out under the Deposit Guarantee then I'm all for it.
After all the debacles in the finance company sector it's not surprising that the Securities Commission is now "playing safe" in this case.
Whether such action is justified, we'll have to wait and see.