Geneva Finance said allegations made by the New Zealand Shareholders Association (NZSA) in a letter to Geneva shareholders were scurrilous.
The association is proposing the removal of chairman Brian Walsh, managing director David O'Connell and Peter Francis from the board. One of the replacements would be association chairman
Bruce Sheppard.
NZSA is seeking a special general meeting but Geneva said today this would be a waste of money. The matter of directorships could be dealt with at the annual meeting.
The company has had a moratorium since November, having frozen deposits worth $138 million from more than 4000 investors. In April, investors backed a share-for-debt swap reconstruction to keep the company trading.
Geneva had kept a lending team on the payroll and continued to write loans when it should be running itself on the basis of a skinny overhead, collecting book debts, and paying off debts, Mr Sheppard said.
Geneva said today that the NZSA allegations were not supported by any substantive information.
The letter from NZSA had caused some confusion and dismay among shareholders.
"The letter makes a number of inferences that the incumbent directors have somehow engineered a situation that is to your disadvantage and that those directors are not concerned to repay investors or act in the best interests of the company," Geneva said.
Geneva said the letter did not set out the credentials of the proposed directors.
"You as shareholders have every right to be satisfied that the directors of the company are acting in the best interests of the company at all times," Geneva said.
See the Sharheholders Assn Geneva Finance letter
here.
- NZPA
