Banned financial adviser Jeff Worboys enjoys VIP polo while investors worry about their $211m

A banned financial adviser enjoyed a VIP jaunt at Polo by the Sea while more than 10,000 investors in his failed company worried about their frozen $211 million.

Jeff and Pat Worboys at McLaren Polo by the Sea on June 1.

BANNED financial adviser Jeff Worboys enjoyed a VIP jaunt at Polo by the Sea while more than 10,000 investors in his failed Halifax Investment Services worried about their $211 million, frozen in the company’s trust accounts since November.

Halifax Investment Services was placed in voluntary administration in November, and into liquidation in March.

More than $211 million of investors’ money remains frozen indefinitely as investigators try and untangle a web of intermingled funds — but there is a shortfall in trust accounts of $19.7 million.

The liquidators said investors could see anywhere between 83 and 94 cents in the dollar of what they invested returned to them, dependent on the shortfall being recouped from “third parties”.

Most of the investors’ funds are held in “open positions” meaning they are liable to fluctuate in line with the market.

Halifax Investment Services is in liquidation. Photo: Supplied

Mr Worboys has not let his ongoing business troubles cramp his lifestyle, with administrators previously finding he was still in possession of a Bentley paid for by the company and living in a luxury rented home at Paradise Waters while they accounted for a shortfall of almost $20 million.

Even as ASIC continued to investigate potential director misconduct in his company, Mr Worboys and wife Pat relaxed in the VIP section of the exclusive Polo by the Sea event earlier this month.

ASIC suspended the company’s financial services licence on January 8, four days before the couple was snapped enjoying the exclusive luxury of The Dome at the Gold Coast Magic Millions Race Day.

The family later splurged on a luxury 20-day cruise aboard luxury liner the Queen Mary 2 while investors who trusted the stockbroking firm he ran worried about the fate of their money.

Photos from Pat Worboys' Facebook page of the Worboys family cruise on Cunard's Queen Mary 2

SUBSCRIBE AND GET FULL DIGITAL ACCESS + JABRA WIRELESS HEADPHONES

In their latest report lodged with ASIC, liquidators from Ferrier Hodgson said there were 10,455 unsecured creditors owed $36.1 million and 19 priority creditors, including staff, owed $108,791, who could expect to see anywhere between 51 per cent and 100 per cent of the funds.

A large part of the liquidators’ work has been formulating a legal strategy across Australia and New Zealand to enable them to apply to the Federal Court to return some of the investors’ funds.

They have had to comb through more than 35,000 transactions and estimated there is $19.7 million missing from clients’ money.

Jeff and Pat Worboys in The Dome VIP at Magic Millions.

They previously reported almost $4.8 million worth of transactions that may be recovered from “third parties”, including $1.98 million in director loan account reductions days before the company went into administration; a $609,346 leave payment to Mr Worboys; a loan payment to another of his companies, AMH, for $124,301; rent payments of $49,631; a rental bond of $6087; and a $39,377 payout of a Bentley lease.

The administrators decided not to recover a company-owned Maserati Gran Turismo Sport because it was security for a Westpac loan.

The riverfront Admiralty Drive home at Paradise Waters which Mr Worboys has rented. Picture Glenn Hampson

ADMINISTRATORS SHUT DOWN HALIFAX INVESTMENT ASIA

They found Halifax had likely failed because client funds were used to prop up the company’s operating losses “since at least January 2017”, and say the company may have been operating while insolvent since that time.

They could not establish whether or not it had traded insolvent before then as the accounting and financial recording were inadequate.

They found extensive “co-mingling” of accounts, meaning investor funds were improperly moved between trading platforms and accounting irregularities in documents lodged with ASIC.

Halifax was also drawn into what has been described as “Australia’s biggest Ponzi scheme”, Courtenay House Capital Trading — which took $209 million from 780 investors, including the Mayor of Sydney’s Sutherland Shire.

Courtenay House was set up in 2015, with Halifax Investment Services as a broker.

In April Mr Worboys was banned from the financial services for six years in relation to that case.