This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
DISGRUNTLED investors have secured funding from IMF Australia to launch class actions against Centro Properties Group, Centro Retail and Centro MCS Manager.
In addition, IMF is also proposing to fund class action actions against Allco Finance Group and MFS Limited.
The class actions against CNP, CER and Centro MCS will be conducted by Maurice Blackburn.
In the claim, investors are alleging that CNP, CER and Centro MCS breached its continuous disclosure obligations between August 09 2007 and February 15 2008.
All shareholders who purchased CER stapled securities in the period are eligible to participate in the claim which IMF will fund subject to a level of SSH participation acceptable to IMF.
IMF has not announced the claim value as yet.
Earlier this month, investment bank and analyst Merrill Lynch estimated that CNP’s litigation liability could be up to $250 million.
At the time, ML said Centro said had not received any notices of potential litigation.
“However, given admitted accounting misstatements and misleading information regarding NXL’s exposure and level of refinancing risk, we believe it is not a leap of faith to assume that litigation will be forthcoming. Our valuation assumes a $250 million litigation liability.
“Management also stated that they have not been approached by the Australian Tax Office about potential tax liabilities relating to the structuring of historic transactions. Given the complexity of the model and the inter related nature of many of the transactions, we would caution investor that there may have been instances where stamp duty or other taxes was inappropriately avoided and as such reviewed by relevant authorities,” ML said.
Meanwhile, IMF is proposing to fund claims that certain AFG shareholders have against AFG and MFS.
In AFG, IMF said the claims relate to alleged breaches by AFG of its continuous disclosure obligations between August 31 2007 and February 25 2008.
And the claims relate to alleged breaches by MFS of its continuous disclosure obligations between August 31 2007 and January 22 2008.
Centro and MFS did not comment yesterday, but Allco said it had not received any notice of any claim or alleged breach.
As such, Allco said when any such notice is received, it will respond appropriately.
But Allco’s company secretary Tom Lennox maintains the group is in compliance with its continuous disclosure obligations under the ASX Listing Rules.
Allco’s shares price closed 12 cents at 54.5 cents, MFS’ shares remain suspended.
Meanwhile, CER share price closed 1 cent higher at 31 cents and CNP closed unchanged at 23.5 cents.
Australian Property Journal
