Apricity creditors question why CFO was being paid but wasn’t working

Apricity Finance Group creditors are asking why its CFO was paid up until the company’s $50m collapse, while telling the liquidator he left two years prior.

Apricity Finance Group managing director Linden Toll.

Creditors have queried the role of Apricity Finance Group chief financial officer and major shareholder Michael Thomson, who, it is claimed, was drawing a salary until the company’s collapse with more than $50m in debt, despite telling the company’s liquidator he no longer worked there.

Minutes from a creditors’ meeting held earlier this month also indicate that managing director Linden Toll is now a bankrupt, while investors owed tens of millions of dollars seek for answers as to where all the funds went.

The Apricity group was placed in administration in early April, and is now in liquidation, with more than $50m in investor funds missing.

Liquidator Darren Vardy has previously reported to creditors that Mr Toll borrowed money from the company, with at least $4.8m still outstanding, and that the money was used in part to help purchase two properties and to pay for gambling expenses.

In the minutes of the most recent meeting, former director Andrew Meakin, who it has been alleged, was presented over years with fictitious company accounts, said the other company officeholders “purported that things were in order, which is clearly not true’’.

Mr Vardy told the meeting that Mr Thomson’s role in the businesses warranted further examination.

“The matter with respect to the CFO is something that’ll be subject to further investigations to see what claims arise as a result of his conduct in the affairs of the company,’’ Mr Vardy said.

“That person was also the company secretary and signing off on legal documents up until as late as the 17th of March.’’

But while Mr Thomson was signing off on documents, he also allegedly told Mr Vardy he no longer worked in the business.

“He asserted to me in the early days that he left the business some two years prior,’’ Mr Vardy said, adding Mr Thomson appeared to have been paid about $1500 per week until the business went into administration.

Mr Thomson’s mobile phone number has been disconnected and The Australian was unable to contact him for comment. Mr Toll’s number has also been disconnected for some weeks.

Mr Thomson, through his company Diversified Group Holdings, owns just under 13 per cent of the shares in Apricity Finance Group.

Apricity was an invoice financing company, based in Bowral, which aimed to make money by advancing cash to businesses large and small against outstanding invoices to help them manage their cash flow.

Mr Vardy has concluded, in creditors’ reports published previously, that Apricity was insolvent from day one, and that investors and Mr Meakin were provided with accounts which bore little relation to the reality of the business.

The group’s debts now exceed $50m, and it has few assets to speak of.

The meeting heard that Apricity was raising money through the issuance of wholesale notes, and did not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence.

Creditors attested that they were never asked to prove that they were sophisticated investors before contributing money.

“I don’t know how many people who are on this call or were ever actually were asked to sign a sophisticated investor certificate, because I can tell you right now, I certainly was not,’’ one creditor told the meeting.

Mr Vardy told the meeting it appeared the company had not filed a tax return since 2018, while Mr Meakin said he had been given assurances that they were being lodged.

“I was unaware that they weren’t lodged until I started wading through documents that were in Bowral and it became clear that despite assurances they were on time and lodged, it appears they weren’t, according to documents that are there from the tax office,’’ Mr Meakin told the meeting.

Mr Vardy told a previous meeting that Mr Toll was a “man of straw” with no assets to speak of to cover the at least $50m owed to investors.

Originally published as Apricity creditors question why CFO was being paid but wasn’t working