But seriously, why did it take so long?

Serious Fraud Office's new chief, Adam Feeley. Photo / Brett Phibbs.

So the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is finally getting serious about mopping up the finance company mess with its new chief, Adam Feeley, telling the country he'll get on to it STAT.

Feeley said everything will be decided by March 31 - either to chase errant finance company directors or let it slide due to lack of evidence or seriousness.

This might be more than new broom talk - sweeping changes etc - and it will be a popular exercise if the likes of Bridgecorp's Rod Petricevic end up in court. Indeed, Bridgecorp is top of Feely's hit-list, which includes some, but not all, of the usual suspects.

However, Feeley admitted that some, potentially justifiable cases, may not be prosecuted. It's all a bit hard sometimes finding out what happened. As Feeley admitted the process of tracking down all the requisite information can often be "difficult and bureaucratic". And if the SFO can't do it, you can see why it was so easy to bamboozle investors in the first place.

The SFO investigation process may make the many thousands of 'mum and dad' investors who lost money in the most-obviously fraudulent finance companies feel a little better but it won't make them any richer.

More happily the 17 wealthy clients defrauded by ASB financial adviser Stephen Gerard Versalko did get their money back.

Versalko is expected to plead guilty to the charges so there will be no drawn-out public trial, which in some ways as a pity because it would be nice to discover how the ASB let him get away with such flagrant crimes for nine years.


David Chaplin