GIC liquidation a landmark decision for woolgrowers

The Grazier’s Investment Company (GIC) will be wound-up and remaining capital distributed amongst original shareholders, following a vote at the company’s general meeting last week.

An overwhelming 99.7 per cent of eligible shareholders voted in favour of winding-up the company and appointing liquidators, with only 75 per cent or more needed to pass.

WAFarmers Livestock Executive Officer Kim Haywood said it was a landmark decision which marked the end of a long battle by industry.

“This legacy issue has been a long time coming, with the original wool grower stakeholders having had to wait many years to get access to the funds they are entitled to as part of their involvement with the company,” she said.

“WAFarmers acknowledges that legacy issues can be difficult to resolve, and now request GIC make every effort to restore the funds to the grower shareholders involved in a swift manner, while ensuring a balanced approach is taken to not waste money on identifying shareholders with only very small lots.

“WAFarmers believes that spending a significant amount of money on trying to identify an individual that has only a very small dividend owing to them is not justified, so GIC must balance this cost.

“While databases can change over time and that it may not be easy to find the surviving stakeholders, we encourage GIC to contact WAFarmers and other state farming organisations which are able to assist in this process, in addition to electoral rolls and their own original database.”

WAFarmers understands that liquidation and distribution of the funds should be completed in the first few months of 2018, subject to tax clearance. 

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest

Recent Posts

Archives

Archives