THE administrators of failed agribusiness group Timbercorp said they had no immediate plans to investigate related-party transactions among senior company executives as they focussed on stabilising the company's operations.
The chief administrator, Mark Korda, said: "We are stabilising operations and trying to find a strategy project by project, then we will do our investigations. We have a few time-sensitive issues to deal with now."
Reports indicate that Timbercorp's chairman, Rod Fitzroy, joined the board after the company bought his stake in an almond company and then paid him $2 million as a consultant.
Timbercorp founders Robert Hance and David Muir made nearly $10 million over nine years from a series of deals with Timbercorp.
Mr Korda was speaking after chairing meetings of Timbercorp creditors and grower investors in Melbourne. The auditorium was packed with up to 1000 grower investors for the forum.
The morning meeting appointed creditor committees to assess each of the failed agribusiness group's 41 projects. The afternoon forum appointed a credit committee of 16 people to investigate the various projects involving grower investors.
This committee will consist of representatives from banks, Timbercorp's forestry, almond, olive and citrus projects, and lessors and unsecured creditors.
Grower investors emphasised their fear that the banks as biggest stake holders would dominate how any money was allocated.
The creditor committees consist of the main creditors for each project. Represented on all the committees are the the big banks - ANZ, Westpac, Commonwealth Bank and BOS International.
KordaMentha will also apply to the courts today to allow it to gain access to money to ensure horticulture projects can be harvested.
Mr Korda said Timbercorp was a surprisingly complex company. There were 63 schemes, with 14 now dormant and about 50 active, and 40 companies to deal with, as well as 5000 creditors, 700 lessors and 18,500 investors .
KordaMentha was acting and operating at the forbearance of the banks, who could liquidate Timbercorp's assets any time if they wanted to. "They have chosen to support the administration process at the moment," he said.
Mr Korda emphasised that the administrators would investigate every project to see whether they were viable.
"The first thing is to look at how to fund the current operations. We will look project by project. It may be a restructure, recapitalisation or a sale, depending on the project … it's a bit early to tell at the moment," he said.
Debt-ridden Timbercorp went into voluntary administration two weeks ago, its share price slashed after months of decline to 4.4c, giving the company a market capitalisation of $15 million. Net assets of $595 million are dwarfed by a current debt of $568 million and net debt of $903.1 million.
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