Liquidator accuses Melissa Caddick of using investors' money as if it was her own
The missing Sydney woman Melissa Caddick is claimed to have used investors’ money as if it was her own and falsified hundreds of bank and share trading statements to ensure her alleged sham stayed hidden, according to a liquidator who has investigated her financial affairs.
Caddick is said to have even used false account details in her own selfmanaged super fund, which she then had audited by the same auditor who examined the accounts of her investors - behaviour labelled “quite bizarre” by a lawyer for the receivers.
The lawyer, Michael Hayter, also raised the possibility that the auditor, Caddick’s accountant, family members, lawyers and other financial advisors would be subjected to public examinations to help “get to the bottom” of what had happened to investors’ money.
Caddick disappeared in November, within hours of the financial watchdog Asic and the Australian federal police raiding her home on suspicion she had stolen millions of dollars from investors.
In court documents, Asic has previously claimed that more than 60 people are suspected to have lost a total of about $13.1m investing with Caddick. Lawyers for some investors believe $25m was lost and even that “could be an extremely conservative assumption”.
New South Wales police, who are investigating her disappearance, believe Caddick is still alive.
Bruce Gleeson, a principal at Jones Partners, was appointed by the federal court last year to act as a provisional receiver of Caddick’s property and a provisional liquidator of her company, Maliver.
“Instead of investing Investor Funds the monies were commingled on multiple occasions into accounts operated by the Company or Ms Caddick personally, and share transactions did not occur in the name of the Investor,” Gleeson said on Wednesday.
“There are hundreds of false bank statements, share contracts and share trading statements.
“At this stage, we have not identified any circumstances in which [share holding] Statements provided by the Company and Ms Caddick to the Investors have been found to be true.”
Gleeson also urged anyone who feared they had lost money with Caddick or who had knowledge about her
assets to come forward.
Former employers and employees of Caddick had spoken to Gleeson, as well as family members and investors, he said.
Gleeson said many of the investors had known Caddick a long time and trusted her.
“That trust relationship…probably meant their guards were down, and they didn’t undertake some checks they might have otherwise done,” Gleeson said.
“We recognise the huge emotional and financial loss of the investors.
“Certainly the devastation caused in their lives can’t be underestimated.”
It became clear that her use of Microsoft Excel, instead of specialised accounting software, was a deliberate attempt to disguise her conduct, Gleeson said, and she had used the same program to generate false client statements.
“Ms Caddick has received the benefit, directly or indirectly, of Investor Funds and acquired property largely with the benefit of Investor Funds. [She] treated the affairs of the Company and her own as one and the same and would transfer Investor Funds between the Company and her personal bank accounts.
“Ms Caddick maintained and controlled all information provided to external advisers for the Company, herself and the Investors who were assisting in preparing financial and taxation statements/returns.
“Ms Caddick appeared insistent on maintaining such records in various Excel spreadsheets as opposed to using an accounting software package which would likely have given such advisers improved visibility over the reporting of financial information. We maintain that aspect was quite intentional on Ms Caddick’s part.”
Asic’s case against Caddick will return to the federal court on 7 April, when orders could be made which allow for property in her name to be liquidated, and the profits returned to investors in her company, circumventing the need for complex court hearings that would drain the pool of assets available.
Hayter said courts were generally reluctant to make orders against the assets of people who were missing, which was one of several complexities in the case.
He was at a loss to explain the alleged actions of Caddick to create “fictitious” documents for her own records, and then get them audited.
“I find [the decision], leaving aside the criminal ramifications, quite bizarre, and quite risky,” he said.
The report by Gleeson and his colleague Daniel Soire into Caddick and Maliver’s assets is being reviewed by Asic before being sent to creditors in a redacted form.
Gleeson said he hoped to release more information about the investigation at a later date.