6. Trio Insolvency

As events unfolded surrounding Australia's largest superannuation theft in history, it would be easy to imagine that a thorough investigation was carried out by the liquidators of Trio Capital Limited. But eight years have passed and ASIC never provided PPB Advisory with enough capital for a proper investigation. 

Brett Manwaring,

Lead director in the Trio Capital liquidation including: - transitioning ten managed investments schemes ($300 million funds under management) to a new Responsible Entity - administering the winding up of five managed investments that had exposure to problematic assets including Australia’s largest superannuation fraud - assisting relevant authorities with criminal charges against those involved. Source Brett Manwaring CV.pdf through PPB Advisory web site. Manwaring said that while he was in Hong Kong on other business, he called into the GCSL Hong Kong office. He was met at the door by a tall large woman (Odgers ?) who simply said, “F..k Off” and slammed the door closed. Source June 25th 2015 meeting with PPB with VOFF delegation at PPB Chifley Square, Sydney office.

Glen Unicomb,

Senior Executive Leader, experience in forensic investigation includes some of Australia’s most complex and high profile corporate investigations and related litigation cases. As forensic accountant for ASIC, his three months investigation of Astarra strategic (September 2009 to December 2009) took him Hong Kong where he interviewed people there. Even with his background in forensic investigation, he said, ‘I had a lot of sleepless nights being involved in this because at the end of the day I had examined Mr Richard very early in the piece and, basically, for ASIC to go away all he had to do was provide indisputable evidence of the veracity and worth of these investments. As time went by, the longer it took and nothing was forthcoming, the more confident I became, but there was never any situation where someone put on the table to me that this was a blatant fraud upfront. It took about three months, I would estimate.’ Source Official Committee Hansard, Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, Collapse of Trio Capital, 6 September 2011 Sydney Page 10.

Rupert Smoker,

head of responsible entity services for the Trust Company that took over Trio in 2010, informed the PJC hearing that it was, ‘contrary to industry practice to handle such a number of schemes and a large number of assets in an omnibus type of way. So it certainly became relevant to us (that something was going on) when we took over’. Mr Smoker was referring to the multiple bank accounts that Trio Capital had established. Chief Executive Officer of the Trust Company, Mr Atkin, at the same hearing said that ‘A lot of our work was then unraveling the spaghetti, so to speak’. Source Official Committee Hansard, Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, Collapse Of Trio Capital, 30 August 2011 Sydney, Page 46.

Stephen Parbery,

Chairman and founding Partner of PPB Advisory. Has played a role in some of Australia's major corporate insolvencies, including: Lehman Brothers Australia, Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust, Allco Principal Investments, Dainford Limited, BS Girvan Limited and as Special Purpose Liquidator in FAI Limited. Note, none of the above mentioned funds are suggested to be outright fraud .