AUSTRALIA’S wool growers could receive a welcome pre-Christmas cheque from a $20 million-plus distribution of funds from the defunct grower-owned entity Graziers’ Investment Company.

GIC liquidator Ahmed Bise from accounting firm Grant Thornton has advised that his anticipated timeline for the distribution of GIC funds could mean cheques are posted by mid-December.

The 36,594 wool grower GIC shareholders — mostly in New South Wales, Western Australia and Victoria — hold 2,093,586 issued shares and are expected to be paid out about $10 a share.

Graziers’ Investment Company Limited was previously known as Australian Wool Services Limited, the successor to the Australian Wool Research and Promotion Organisation, which once had The Woolmark Company Pty Ltd and Australian Wool Innovation Limited as subsidiaries. AWI was de-merged from AWS in 2002 and The Woolmark Company was sold to AWI in 2007.

Mr Bise has told Australian Wool Growers of Australia chairman Robert McBride that Grant Thornton is expecting to deposit the GIC funds into a dedicated funding account contolled by Link Market Services by December 5, with a circular and cheques mailed out by LMS by December 10.

“All going according to plan the above timeline should not change and shareholders will have their money before Christmas,” Mr Bise has told Mr McBride.

Mr Bise said all shareholders will be encouraged to present their cheques as soon as practicable. He said any unpresented cheques as at 10 June 2020 (six months after the date of despatch) will be regarded as unclaimed and lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Mr McBride welcomed the anticipated timeline but said the issue of what would be done with funds for unclaimed GIC shareholder funds.

“What happens to that money, is it going to be divided up?

“It could run into millions of dollars,” he said.

“All you can do is say if your family has been involved in wool in the past please contact Grant Thornton.”

Sheep Central contacted Ahmed Bise today, but no response was received before this story was published.