Re: Brisconnections shareholders - financial ruin
Not sure what your point is. We were talking about the BCSCA news page. (attached) I wouldn't know where to find that link you have posted. Can you show me and everyone else what links you need to follow from the Commsec main page to find this link. I gather it isn't in the members research section of Commsec...
It's aged off by now, but for about two weeks, it was on the main login page, front and centre. (Where the red circle is)
The point is, you almost have to intentionally close your eyes to the fact that this is not a normal stock. Layer after layer after layer of "hints" that this is a partially paid security. They may not have been intuitive, but they were there.
The Comsec chart lists the security as $1 PD. I didn't know what that meant, but a quick google told me it stands for $1 paid. Since no other share says $1 paid, what does that imply? That more needs to be paid? Even if you couldn't find a result for it, would you buy a share not knowing what something described in it's title meant?
I know there are plenty of "trusts" that don't owe money, but why is a road builder a trust? Does that indicate something odd about their business? A quick look at investopedia says
"A fiduciary relationship in which one party, known as a trustor, gives another party, the trustee, the right to hold title to property or assets for the benefit of a third party, the beneficiary. "
Maybe that they're holding money in trust until it's needed? In which case, what are you investing in? A road builder? Or a fund raiser for a road builder? Did it matter to you at all? And if it didn't do you deserve to get burned?
There have been some very high profile partially paid securities. TLS
CA for example. Even if it didn't click with you that "CA" means something special, considering the fact normal securites are 3 codes, wouldn't you at least stop to check what a 5 letter code meant?
Maybe I'm being a bit harsh here. I don't know. Perhaps hindsight is 20/20, where these things I'm pointing out were hard to see at the time. But I've always had the policy of never investing in something I don't understand - so when my stock scanners turned up all kinds of weird codes for instruments I never understood, I simply filtered out everything except standard equities.
The law has never seen ignorance as a reason to break a civil contract, unless there was intentional deception on the other party. Hell, even S10s, which are handed out like candy at Halloween, need you to prove that it was not only an honest, but REASONABLE mistake that you made. (A section 10 is where guilt is proven, but no conviction recorded because an honest and reasonable mistake has been made - usually on a minor infringement, where there is no counter party to hurt by providing the person an out. An example is a 50 zone with all the signs stolen or defaced. A reasonable person might make the honest mistake of driving at 60km/h, but a reasonable person would not assume a residential zone was 80km/h, despite the fact that the law says that any unmarked zones with no street lights is automatically 80)
Considering how much information is available about partially paid securities, and how many "hints" are available, I hardly see that too many judges are going to say this is a "reasonable" mistake, no matter how honest it was.
I think I'm gonna shut up about this now. There is no point arguing with someone who is stuck with the security. They're always going to feel hard done by. I have more sympathy for the MQG shareholders, as they are almost certain to have to front up the money for someone else's careless mistake, no matter how much that person feels like they were misled into taking that debt on.
<Disclosure. I do not hold, neither am I intending to hold either security>