EY partner Vince Smith has been appointed provisional liquidator of six funds management companies associated with the late David Jones, following a successful court application by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The six entities are Oceanic Asset Management, Oceanic Equities, Australian Global Capital, Mulato Management Services, Mulato Nominees and Ridgeway House.
The Federal Court application followed complaints to Asic and Western Australia’s major fraud squad by a "large number of UK-based investors".
This followed the suspected suicide of Mr Jones, who was a director of the companies, and his wife Jeanette Jones in June this year.
Asic also obtained asset preservation orders and the appointment of a trustee (Kim Wallman of HLB Mann Judd) to the deceased estate of Mr Jones.
This includes the former residential property of the deceased in Como.
ASIC said Oceanic Asset Management holds an Australian Financial Services licence and appears to have been operating a number of unregistered managed investment schemes.
Its investigation into the affairs of Oceanic and associated entities is continuing.
Oceanic was launched in 2005, with its operations run from Perth but its focus on UK investors.
It attracted strong investor supporter in the early years, to the point where it had $160 million in its Australian Natural Resources Fund and $11 million in its Global Resources Fund.
In 2007 it launched plans for a $60 million uranium fund but cancelled those plans in 2008 after failing to attract sufficient investor support.
Business News understands most investors from that time have been repaid but management of the six entities in recent years is unclear.
