Why MIS is Australia’s biggest scam18.05.09 4:22 amBreaking...

Why MIS is Australia’s biggest scam


18.05.09 4:22 am

Breaking News: Great Southern collapses

via JOHN LAWRENCE
ANZ has been revealed as being owed $500m by Timbercorp . Little wonder they baulked at lending more to Gunns. Fortunately for ANZ, Gunns sold trees to reduce their debt. Probably under bank duress. Long time finance journalist Michael Pascoe has portrayed MIS as “the biggest single scam in Australian financial history, probably losing more money than HIH and Bond combined.” See http://sl.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/finance/why-mis-is-australias-biggest-scam/1510974.aspx?storypage=0


Meanwhile The Weekly Times on May 13 2009 reported both Labor Senator and former shadow agriculture minister Kerry O’Brien, and Liberal Senator and former forestry minister Eric Abetz as continuing their support for MIS schemes despite the current woes of Timbercorp and Great Southern. http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2009/05/14/78485_latest-news.html. Presumably they have their reasons. The mill’s not quite dead yet.

And,


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aU0cvbxRNFqI&refer=australia


Australia’s Great Southern Forestry Fund Names Administrator


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By Robert Fenner

May 18 (Bloomberg)—Great Southern Ltd., an Australian forestry investment plan, appointed Ferrier Hodgson as administrators to reorganize and restructure its business.

The decision was made at a May 16 Great Southern board meeting, Ferrier Hodgson said in a statement on its Web Site.

Great Southern raised more than A$1.8 billion ($1.3 billion) from investors in the past five years, focusing on forestry and cattle, Ferrier Hodgson said.

The Perth-based company has 43,000 investors, owns more than 150,000 cattle and owns and leases about 240,000 hectares (593,000 acres) of land for forestry.

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Fenner in Melbourne [email protected]
Last Updated: May 17, 2009 18:38 EDT