Missing businesswoman Melissa Caddick’s investors could lose millions
Two weeks after millionaire businesswoman Melissa Caddick went missing, details have emerged of an intricate financial web which has panicked investors hunting for their millions.
Police & Courts
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The web of secrets surrounding missing woman Melissa Caddick’s business dealings has been exposed as panicked investors have been left to wonder if they will be able to recover the money they sunk into her operation.
Ms Caddick hasn’t been seen since she left her $7 million Dover Heights mansion on November 12, with detectives now working to pinpoint how and why she vanished.
A clearer picture is emerging of Ms Caddick’s boutique investment operation that sparked an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission just prior to her disappearance.
The Saturday Telegraph can reveal that ASIC began its investigation after learning Ms Caddick was allegedly using another company’s financial licence details to operating her investment company, Maliver, which is a breach of corporate laws.
It can also be revealed that Ms Caddick’s investors were friends and family. But this could extend further as ASIC continues to uncover the identities of more investors and how much money was handed over.
The Saturday Telegraph understands Ms Caddick’s business was a bare bones operation. She did not have a website and most of her clients came to her by word of mouth. But the worry for investors will now be if they can get their money back. This could be made difficult with ASIC now moving to have liquidators appointed to Ms Caddick’s company and affairs. This means investor money could be spent on liquidator’s fees.
This comes as the lawyer acting for Ms Caddick’s family dropped a bombshell in court on Friday by telling Justice Jayne Jagot that police were now treating the mother-of-one’s disappearance as a murder investigation.
Barrister Jane Muir told the court it had been difficult for her to take instructions from Ms Caddick’s family, including her brother, Adam Grimley. “In Mr Grimley’s case, I understand he is also spending time assisting the police with what is now a murder investigation,” Ms Muir told the court.
The mystery deepened when police disputed Ms Muir’s claim shortly after the hearing, saying Ms Caddick was still being treated as a missing person.
Mr Grimley, who was extremely close with his younger sister, owned a small stake in her $7 million home. Ms Caddick lived in the Wallangra Road home with her husband of seven years Anthony Koletti.
It is believed the pair met while Mr Koletti, now a DJ who plays out of a studio in their home, was a hairdresser.
In recent days, Mr Koletti has been calling friends and associates in the eastern suburbs pleading with them to keep an eye out for his missing wife and to ask her to contact him if they see her.
Just days before she went missing, the multi-millionaire businesswoman’s mansion was raided by the Australian Federal Police, as part of ASIC’s investigation.
One investor, who spoke on the basis of anonymity, said their family invested more than $200,000 with Ms Caddick.
“She was in financial planning looking after people’s super and investing their money,” the investor, who has contacted ASIC, said.
“At one stage, there was a 200-250 per cent return on the money. Obviously now that raises eyebrows.”
Ms Caddick climbed the corporate ladder as a financial adviser before going it alone with Maliver in 2013.
She has generated immense wealth during her successful career and enjoyed luxury travel, including on private jets and ski holidays to Aspen.
“She was self made, very much a doting mum and very good to her mother and brother,” a friend said.
“It is very unusual for her to disappear, she was alway very family orientated.”
On the day of her disappearance, Ms Caddick’s teenage son and her husband have told police they believe she got out of bed about 5.30am to go for a run.
She left her phone, wallet and passport at home, and hasn’t touched her bank and social media accounts since.
Mr Koletti reported Ms Caddick missing at noon that day.
By that point, she hadn’t been seen for 36 hours.
He told police he went looking for his wife on the footpath lining the Dover Heights cliff tops when she failed to return home.
Complicating this baffling case is the lack of CCTV or eyewitness accounts that collaborate the suggestion Ms Caddick went for a run in the early hours of November 12.
The AFP seized the CCTV hard drive at her home during the raid so it wasn’t working when she left.
In the early stages of the investigation, a number of investors, mostly family and friends, have come forward to declare how much money, including superannuation, they invested with Ms Caddick.
ASIC is asking anyone who has invested money with Ms Caddick to contact them via email on maliver.investor@asic.gov.au.
On November 10, the Federal Court issued an order freezing Ms Caddick’s assets, including her bank accounts, and banned her from leaving Australia.
She was allowed to withdraw $800 a week from her account, but not allowed to sell any property or move funds offshore.
The case brought against her by ASIC was due to be mentioned in court again on November 13 — the day after Ms Caddick vanished.
It is now scheduled to return to court on December 8.
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