INVESTORS in Timbercorp's forestry projects liable for more than $14 million in unpaid rent stand to lose their investments in plantations worth tens of millions of dollars.
Hundreds of creditors of the beleaguered managed investment business may have defaulted on rent bills issued in April by company administrator Mark Korda, the Herald Sun reports.
Landowners who have leased 50,000ha to Timbercorp for forestry purposes are due $15 million in rent for the next three months.
But Timbercorp's creditors' committee was told this week that rent collected by Mr Korda's insolvency partnership, KordaMentha, amounted to only $1.5 million.
But Chris Garnaut, a member of the committee and principal of the Melbourne business Garnaut Wealth Advisers, said last night that the bills were sent without explanation.
Mr Garnaut said it was not made clear who would control the funds or how they would be spent.
"Of course people have been reluctant to pay," he said.
Many of the forest investors have paid an annual management fee plus regular rent for the past 10 years and were due to see their blue gums harvested next year.
Mr Garnaut said that until Timbercorp crashed every investor had met their commitments and would most likely have continued to do so had a proper explanation been sent with the bill.
