no it is not easy---bendigo will get skinned

Forestry schemes face ring-fencing
01 Jul, 2011 11:44 AM
OPERATORS of forestry schemes and other managed investments would be banned from using investor money as a slush fund, in a bid to avoid Ponzi-style �collapses and protect investors.
Ring-fencing schemes so the money invested in one project cannot be used to top-up returns on others is the latest in a string of reforms proposed in the two years since the collapse of Timbercorp and Great Southern, The Australian Financial Review reports.

The collapses left 60,000 investors, who had sunk $3 billion into forestry projects, in a messy battle with creditors and receivers.

In addition to controls on scheme funds, the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee discussion paper released yesterday includes overhauling company law to make it easier for investors to get rid of scheme managers, appoint new ones and wind projects up.

"One of the principal obstacles in practice to restructuring a financially stressed [scheme] can be the difficulty in stabilising its affairs, at least temporarily, while the likelihood of its rehabilitation can be determined," the paper says.