
Originally Posted by
Olman
The Equititrust Annual Financial Report makes for some interesting reading.
The Equititrust Income Fund is managed by Equititrust Limited (the "Responsible Entity" - let's abbreviate that to "RE").
The RE maintains a minimum investment of $40million in the Fund. This investment is subordinated to the rights of other investors. I take this to mean that ordinary investors get paid out before the RE. A very noble gesture, on the face of it. However, there is lucrative compensation available for this gesture.
Income distributions from the Scheme were conducted in the following order of priority:
1. expenses of the scheme in an actual basis
2. benchmark distribution to members
3. payment of management fees to the RE
4. distribution of remaining surplus to be paid to the RE as a return on RE's subordinated units.
The RE takes a management fee of 1.5% (excluding GST) of funds under management ($4.46 million in 2010).
In addition, the RE took $10,531,734 as a return on the RE's subordinated investment, in accordance with priority 4 above. This was in one year, and amounts to 1/4 of the subordinated investment - a return of 25%. Not bad, when you consider the rates being paid to ordinary investors of around 8%.
What I find disturbing is that the RE has classified the Fund as a "non-liquid" fund, and on this basis they have frozen redemptions. If the Fund is really "non-liquid", where did they find the 10.5 million to pay themselves? Where does the capital invested by the ordinary investors rank in priority as far as redemptions are concerned?
As I see it, at 25% return, they only have to hang in there for 4 years and they've made their capital back, and the subordinated status turns into a joke at the investors' expense. All that is required is to hold off redemptions for another couple of years while continuing to rake off the "distribution of remaining surplus to be paid to the RE as a return on RE's subordinated units."
Something smells very fishy here. Any comments?
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