ARP Growth’s administrators cannot value the fund
The investors in the ARP Growth fund formally received a nil valuation of their investments, and now the losses from the fund’s manager Trio Capital Limited are to exceed US$180mln.
The administrators of Trio Capital Limited, the accounting group PPB, were investigating company’s managed investment schemes, and in a meeting in Sydney on May 23 informed that they were unable to value the main investment vehicle of the ARP fund, British Virgin Islands-registered Professional Pensions ARP Ltd (PPARP), through which more than US$52mln were invested. By words of unit holder, Mr. Terry Gammell, the delay in finding any value in PPARP meant the ASIC should examine the disappearance of the money.
The nil valuation of PPARP adds to the disappearance of US$123mln invested by another fund managed by Trio Capital, Astarra Strategic. This investment, made through another BVI company EMA International, brought likely losses from Trio Capital to more than US$180mln. By order of NSW Supreme Court, five Trio Capital funds, including ARP Growth and Astarra Strategic, were winded up. The judge found that Astarra Strategic had signs of a “fraudulent scam”, and he also said there were “inherent vices” in Trio Capital’s business model.
The administrators are awaiting the appointment of a liquidator in the British Virgin Islands, PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attempt to recover some value from the PPARP investment, which was held through a complicated structure, using also a HK-based Empyreal Holdings as funds manager.