IPO Wealth set for liquidation

Mayfair 101’s IPO Wealth declared voluntary administration and appointed administrators from Cor Cordis in an attempt to prevent its trustee, Vasco, to prevent a “fire sale” of its assets. But the Supreme Court of Victoria has now decided that it was appropriate for Vasco to appoint receivers from insolvency firm Dye & Co – a move Mayfair managing director James Mawhinney blasted as displaying “a lack of commercial aptitude” – and the fund is now set to be liquidated. 

“It is disappointing that Vasco’s decision to appoint receivers has forced the end to an otherwise independent process that we sought to undertake via the voluntary administration,” Mr Mawhinney said. “Moving forward, we will be cooperating with the provisional liquidators to ensure that the return to IPO Wealth’s unitholders is maximised under the circumstances.”

Mayfair claims that Cor Cordis was appointed to ensure the full return of capital to unitholders via a deed of company arrangement, which was tabled in court but did not win the support of Vasco. 

The court battle began after Mayfair 101 failed to make $3 million in loan repayments to the IPO Wealth Fund – a cornerstone of Mayfair’s bid to create a “tourism mecca” on Dunk Island – and saw Mayfair defending allegations that it deleted six user profiles and 1,500 documents from its data management system and that its funds were set up as Ponzi schemes. Mr Mawhinney savaged Vasco for its decision to appoint receivers during COVID-19, and said that the fund’s recent troubles stemmed from market volatility and court action by ASIC over allegedly misleading advertising.

“In this environment, a facility falling into arrears by a marginal factor is not uncommon and is no justification for calling in receivers,” Mayfair said in a statement in which it also said it had a “near-perfect track record” of meeting income distributions and redemptions. “The harmful steps taken by ASIC with respect to the [group’s] advertising [have] evidently been a key driver for Vasco’s decision to appoint receivers, at a time when support for Australian businesses is needed most.”