St Laurence payout 32c at best

Secured debenture holders of failed finance company St Laurence will get 15 cents to 22 cents in the dollar back from their investment provided the receivers can sell remaining assets in an orderly fashion.

Taken together with the 10 cents repaid under St Laurence's abandoned moratorium, the best debenture holders can hope to recover is 32 cents in the dollar.

The first assessment by receivers Barry Jordan and David Vance of Deloitte is a blow for the 9000 investors owed about $250 million from St Laurence who in 2008 agreed to give the firm until 2013 to repay 70 per cent of its debentures.

The other 30 per cent of debenture holders were due to be repaid by 2021 and capital note holders by 2034.

The receivers confirmed that note holders will get zero and there will be nothing available for unsecured creditors. No interest will be paid.

The remaining repayment would come over the next 18 months and is "subject to securing an orderly realisation of the remaining management contracts, sale of National property Trust units and no adverse movements in the property sector," the receivers said in a statement today.

They will also pursue guarantees provided by former managing director Kevin Podmore and associated companies which pledged to meet any shortfall in funds up to a maximum $20 million if the company was put in receivership.

Still, Podmore said the combined value of the three companies that underwrote the guarantee had shrunk to $4.9 million by the end of 2009 and the assets they held were illiquid and offset by debt, Fairfax Media reported last month.

The receivership spared three property management subsidiaries including the manager of National Property Trust.

Last week, manager of National Property Trust agreed to relinquish its management rights for $2.5 million and sell back its holding in the property investor, bowing to pressure from a group of unitholders including the Cushing family.

St Laurence was put in receivership after Podmore went against the trustee's wishes by putting an offer to investors to swap their debt for equity in a new company that would hold the remaining assets.