At least 2000 depositors of troubled finance company Central Investment & Finance PLC (CIFL) unanimously rejected the Central Bank’s restructuring plan and put forward an alternate plan at a packed meeting at New Town hall in Colombo a short while ago (on Monday).
President of the newly formed CIFL depositors association Piyasena Weerasinghe said that the committee has devised an alternate plan to resurrect the company.
He said that before resorting to legal action they will discus with the Central Bank to obtain Rs.1 billion of their defaulted money by Aspic Homes, a subsidiary of CIFL for a housing scheme in Homagama to operate the plan initially and later find an investor to make a capital infusion.
The depositors have agreed to block their deposits for two years and draw the interest at 12 per cent till the company is revived in accordance with the revival plan
Depositors have put the blame on the Central Bank for the failure to monitor the financial mismanagement of the company directors for allegedly cheating and committing a criminal breach of trust with regards to depositors’ money.
Mr. Weerasinghe told the gathering of disgruntled depositors that the Central Bank has failed to take any action protect the company from collapsing. Instead they have given its consent to appoint Touchwood Group Chairman Roscoe Maloney and wife as Chairman and deputy Chairman with an investment of US$12 million and the board of directors of the CIFL has been re-constituted with three Maloney nominees.
But the Maloney couple has failed to infuse the capital investment promised by them placing the company in dire strait, he said adding that the restructuring plan proposed after wards aimed at converting 60 per cent of deposits to non voting shares cannot be acceptable as they will have to wait for seven years to get the balance 40 per cent of their deposits, he said. – Ends -
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