Government Trustee Gives Update on Liquidation of Cash Plus

The Office of the Government Trustee, as liquidator of Cash Plus Limited and receiver of its affiliates and subsidiaries, is responsible for the recovery and disposal of the company’s assets and applying the net proceeds to the settlement of the proven claims of its depositors and creditors.

The Trustee has, since being appointed in July 2008, conducted its own searches and investigations to verify the information received from the former co-interim receiver/managers, taken the necessary steps to recover the assets identified, and commenced the process of verifying the claims submitted by creditors, the majority of whom were depositors in Cash Plus.

Cash Plus had in excess of 40,000 depositors and, based on the report of the receivers/managers, at the date of commencement of the receivership, had liabilities of approximately $23B, approximately $19B of which was due to depositors.

The Trustee has received over 35,000 claims from over 21,000 persons for the sums of JM$17.5B, US$23.3M, £413,500 and CAN$93,300. The combined value of these claims is in excess of JM$19B.

To date, the Trustee has recovered over JM$827.5M and US$1.16M mainly from the proceeds of sale of various types of property, rental of real estate and payments made in settlement of liabilities owed to the Cash Plus Group from transactions prior to the receivership and liquidation.

The total value of the asset portfolio of the Cash Plus Group, as has been recovered to date, is insufficient to make a dividend payment of any significant proportion towards the claims received and cannot be immediately applied to the satisfaction of the creditors’ liabilities for a number of reasons.

These include, the continuation of investigations to identify and recover Cash Plus assets within and outside the jurisdiction, the inability of the Trustee to quickly dispose of assets given the need to resolve legal and other issues, and the need to individually review and verify claims and identify and remove duplications.

There is also a need to determine the amount of funds in hand that can actually be applied to the payment of dividends as well as the priority of distribution. Taxes, contributions to the NIS and NHT, wages, salaries, and redundancy payments due to former employees must be paid prior to distribution to depositors.

Once these steps have been completed, a dividend payment of a nominal proportion may be possible in the future.

The Office of the Government Trustee will publish any major developments in the liquidation in the printed media. Persons seeking information from the Office of the Government Trustee are asked to continue to write or call directly using the contact information below:

Office of the Government Trustee
52-60 Grenada Crescent
C.S.O. Box 497
Kingston 5
Tel.: 929-8332, 926-8847, 619-1475-6
Fax: 926-9994
Email: info.ogt@micaf.gov.jm