Australian Fiduciaries: $3.8 million of investors' money went to a horror film. The liquidator puts the recoverable amount at nil.

The Possessed Pty Ltd was formed to make one feature film, The Possessed. According to the liquidator examining the Australian Fiduciaries group, it received approximately $3.8 million of investor money. He cites online estimates that the film grossed about US$232,706 worldwide. His current estimate of what the company can return for investors is nil.

To understand how investment money reached a horror film, it helps to understand what Australian Fiduciaries was.

Australian Fiduciaries Limited was a Queensland-based licensed funds manager. It operated three registered managed investment schemes: the Global Diversified Alpha Fund, Global Multi-Strategy Fund and Global All Seasons Fund.

As the schemes' "responsible entity", Australian Fiduciaries was their legal operator. It was responsible for managing the funds, overseeing their assets and acting in the interests of their members. Investors bought units in the schemes. Their pooled money was then invested through a network of related companies and trusts.

Those entities put the money into projects including specialist disability accommodation, childcare centres, property developments, feature films and a proposed school.

ASIC understands that approximately 600 people, most investing through self-managed super funds, placed around $160 million into the schemes from February 2020. The liquidator says company records show that approximately 575 of them, accounting for about $150 million, invested following what he describes as alleged financial advice from Compare Your Super.

Australian Fiduciaries was therefore not the company making the film or constructing the properties. It was the licensed fund operator sitting above the structure: the company through which investor money entered and through which any eventual distribution must return.

The Federal Court has now wound up the three schemes and eight of the project companies. The liquidator's schedule says those eight companies received approximately $17.5 million of investor money, directly or indirectly. Five, which received $9.2 million between them, currently have a recoverable estimate of nil.

The Possessed is one of those five. The others include a company formed for a school that never acquired any land and two more film-production companies.

Is Australian Fiduciaries in administration or liquidation? Liquidation. Administrators were appointed on 4 July 2025, and creditors resolved on 8 August 2025 to wind up Australian Fiduciaries and 22 related companies. Matthew Hudson of SV Partners is the liquidator. On 8 October 2026 the court wound up the three registered schemes, the Global Diversified Alpha Fund, the Global Multi-Strategy Fund and the Global All Seasons Fund, and the eight companies that had been under court-appointed receivership since September 2025. It appointed Hudson and Terry van der Velde of SV Partners as liquidators of all eleven. The three schemes were previously named the Global SRI Ethical Alpha Fund, the Global SRI All Seasons Fund and the Global SRI Multi-Strategy Fund.

The amounts and estimates below are the liquidator's, from his June 2026 report to creditors. He describes them as approximate, and he has withheld three recoverable figures because of sensitive legal and commercial issues.

A nil estimate is the liquidator's current view, not a final outcome.

Three details from the same report sharpen the picture. The liquidator says no land or property was acquired for the school. According to its own records, The Possessed did not own the production rights to its film; the liquidator says they are allegedly owned by a related company. The Main Beach apartments are in the final stages of construction, but progress has stalled for lack of funds to pay the principal contractor.

The Sanctuary Early Learning interests are held through shares in the companies that run the centres. Those operating companies are not among the eight wound up.

Most of the investors' money went into property, much of it specialist disability accommodation in south-east Queensland. The liquidator says about $95 million of investor money was used to buy and develop 11 properties, and about $3.7 million of surplus has been realised from them to date. Sales have repaid about $31.4 million of secured loans.

The individual properties show where the money stopped:

Between October 2023 and June 2024, eight of the property companies took out mortgages totalling about $24.2 million over properties the liquidator says investor money had already paid for. He is investigating how those funds were used.

Two of the companies just wound up had private receivers before the court appointed its own. On 17 July 2025, HMC Private Credit Funds Management, formerly Payton Funds Management, appointed EY receivers to SRI Fiduciaries 3 under its security. On 4 August 2025, PrivateInvest Capital Securities, as trustee for the PrivateInvest First Mortgage Income Fund, appointed Grant Thornton receivers to SRI Fiduciaries 2. Both appointments were continuing in June 2026.

Money recovered inside the property and project companies goes first to their own creditors. Six of the group's trustee companies have given notice of dividends since October 2025, and Impact Fiduciaries has given three. The liquidator's stated plan is that, once those companies are realised, money is paid up to Australian Fiduciaries as one of their creditors.

Investors can only be paid from Australian Fiduciaries, as the schemes' responsible entity. It has declared no dividend. The liquidator says investors "are currently excluded from lodging a claim as an unsecured creditor". Whether they have provable claims may need a court application, which he does not expect to make until material recoveries are realised, and he has told investors that no proofs of debt are required at this stage.

In June he said he expected to be able to declare a dividend to Australian Fiduciaries' creditors in mid to late 2027, subject to litigation funding and further recoveries. His report of 20 October says it is not possible to give a timeframe for the winding-up, or the likelihood of any return to creditors or investors.

ASIC published notice on 20 October of a creditors' meeting for Australian Fiduciaries at 10am AEST on 5 November, held virtually, with proofs and proxies due by 5pm on 4 November. The liquidator's report sets out its purpose: to appoint a committee of inspection that could approve a litigation funding agreement, which needs the approval of the court, a committee or creditors.

Committee members must be creditors. The report spells it out: "A creditor (not an Investor)". Because only a small number of creditors are known, the liquidator expects the committee to have only a handful of members.

He is seeking litigation funding for recovery actions, has applied to ASIC's Assetless Administration Fund, and is considering possible claims against parties in Malaysia, Singapore, Malta and other European countries.

According to the company's records, about 575 of the investors, with about $150 million, invested after what the liquidator calls "alleged financial advice" from Compare Your Super Pty Ltd, ACN 609 495 650. ASIC records Compare Your Super as an authorised representative of Australian Fiduciaries from 20 January 2020 to 27 January 2021, then of APT Strategy Pty Ltd, ACN 058 368 362, until 14 September 2023. ASIC says the date of investment determines which firm an AFCA complaint about that advice relates to.

Both advice companies were wound up before the funds' operator. Compare Your Super's members resolved on 29 November 2023 to wind it up as a members' voluntary liquidation, and ASIC ordered it wound up on 13 August 2026. APT Strategy's members resolved on 29 February 2024 to wind it up as a creditors' voluntary liquidation. It was deregistered on 3 January 2025, and from then AFCA could not accept complaints about it.

Investors applied to the Supreme Court of Queensland, which on 22 June 2026 ordered APT Strategy re-registered and appointed Hudson as its liquidator. AFCA reinstated its membership on 25 August 2026 for 12 months, to 25 August 2027. ASIC says the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort can pay up to $150,000 on an eligible unpaid AFCA determination about personal financial advice.

ASIC requires Australian Fiduciaries itself to keep its AFCA membership until 19 June 2027. Because it is in liquidation, AFCA will consider complaints about it only where they fall within the scope of the compensation scheme.

About $95 million went into property and $17.5 million into the eight companies wound up in October, from feature films to a planned school. Whatever comes back has to pass through the lenders, then the companies that held the assets, then Australian Fiduciaries, before any of it can reach the people whose super funds paid for it.

If you are owed money by a company in an insolvency process and are unsure which entity you dealt with: They owe me money

We publish public-record information, not advice. The liquidator is the authoritative source on the liquidations and AFCA on complaints. The amounts in this article are the liquidator's approximate figures and preliminary estimates, and nothing here is a statement about the conduct of any person.