AS MARKETS fell last October and Storm Financial was in the throes of what became a monumental collapse, it managed to meet its corporate obligations to at least one party: Macquarie Group.
Storm's payout of a corporate loan to Macquarie Group was briefly mentioned in a Macquarie Group submission to a federal parliamentary committee investigating Storm Financial's collapse.
Issues surrounding Storm's collapse are likely to be aired further in committee hearings this week in venues that bore the brunt of the Storm collapse, as the committee hears evidence in Cairns, Townsville and Brisbane.
Most of Macquarie's submission deals with its involvement with Storm through its margin lending business, known as Macquarie Investment Lending before it was sold to Leveraged Equities.
''Macquarie also provided a corporate debt facility to Storm, which Storm elected to repay in full in October 2008,'' the submission to the parliamentary inquiry said, without providing further details.
Australian Securities and Investments Commission records show Macquarie held two charges against Storm Financial. Both are recorded as being discharged in late 2008.
One loan was taken out in November 2006 and was signed by both Julie and Emmanuel Cassimatis. The document appears to show the drawdown of $10 million secured against Storm's properties. It is not known what the final payout figure of the loans were.
By October last year Storm had sent letters to all its clients asking whether their portfolios could be sold to meet margin calls - but did not sell them down until some weeks or months later. On January 9 an administrator was appointed, and on March 26 a liquidator was appointed.
The Macquarie submission also shows Macquarie Investment Lending gave financial advisers who referred their customers a 1 per cent interest discount on their own personal margin loans.
Starkly different views of the collapse of Storm Financial will be aired over the next couple of days in the hearings. Former Storm staff with strong views of how the adviser collapsed are among a select few chosen to address the inquiry as it sifts through evidence relating to Storm Financial.
