19 August 2011
Balmain Trilogy (BT) is aware that some Pacific First Mortgage Fund (PFMF) Unitholders have received an unsolicited, unattributed and unsigned letter from a person or group, referring to themselves as ProtectPFMF.
There is no clear indication of who is responsible for this correspondence (and the associated website) or what their intentions may be for the Fund. We do, however, note an article in the weekend Financial Review1 which states:
“In the past week Sullivan [ex-CEO of the previous manager of PFMF] and some unit holders have tried to gauge the sentiment of some of Pacific First Mortgage Fund’s 11,000 investors towards Balmain Trilogy.
Sullivan says he may know the answer to that question by the end of next week, and if he garners sufficient grunt from a new website and letter to investors, he may call a meeting to remove Balmain Trilogy.”
In the event that any “group” were to gain control of the Fund which is in any way associated with Mr Sullivan (in any capacity) we assume that any legal actions to examine Mr Sullivan (and others) in Court and/or to recover fund assets from any Mr Sullivan entity would immediately cease. We believe that it is essential that these proceedings continue as they may yield significant value for PFMF.
Unitholders should also note that Mr Sullivan was served with an Examination Summons by PFMF’s solicitors, Maurice Blackburn Pty Limited, in March 2011. More recently Mr Sullivan has commenced a personal defamation action against Andrew Griffin, the Joint CEO of Balmain Trilogy.
Unitholders should rest assured that whatever Mr Sullivan may do, it will not lessen our resolve to proceed with the public examinations of his conduct.
Additionally, and to make it quite clear:
- none of the information or statements contained in the letter are supported by BT;
- the statements in the letter are misleading in relation to material facts and/or incorrect;
- we are not aware of any unitholder that is in support of the contents of the letter other than those Unitholders associated with Mr Sullivan;
- we are not aware of how ProtectPFMF obtained your personal details as they were not provided by BT; and
- nothing will diminish our ongoing commitment to optimally recover PFMF assets.
We will be shortly sending a mail out to all Unitholders refuting the primary allegations made by this hidden group who still, weeks later, refuse to show themselves, if indeed they exist other than in the mind of Mr. Sullivan. There is no requirement for Unitholders to take any action in relation to the material that has been issued by ProtectPFMF.
Should you have any general enquiries, please call Balmain Trilogy Client Services on Freecall 1800 194 500 or email contact@balmaintrilogy.com.au
1. The Australian Financial Review (The Weekend Edition), 13 -14 August 2011, Pg 53