In an update to unitholders late last year, Jason Tracy of Alvarez & Marsal said the Federal Court had made orders allowing Keystone Asset Management’s receivers to sell off the Bell Potter Securities held through the Shield Master Fund.
In an affidavit to the court last month, Tracy said that the Bell Potter Securities comprise a “diversified portfolio of exchange traded funds, securities in listed investment companies and other securities”.
At 31 May 2024, the value of the Bell Potter Securities was $174,678,682, according to the affidavit. As of 31 October 2025, however, the value had increased to $196,843,032.
Given the liquidators are seeking to sell 75 per cent of the holdings, this would represent close to $148 million.
The latest court order will see the proceeds of the sale placed in interest-bearing accounts “in order to end the exposure of the Bell Potter Securities to the risk of market fluctuation”.
“The Court has not yet made orders determining whether the Receivers can make an interim distribution to qualifying SMF unitholders,” Tracy said in the letter to unitholders.
A subsequent hearing on the ability of the liquidators to make an interim distribution to qualifying Shield unitholders will not be held until 18 February 2026.
Tracy added that if the Court makes the orders the receivers have applied for, an interim distribution will follow “as soon as possible after that date”.
According to the court orders, the receivers and liquidators “are justified and are acting reasonably and properly in realising and selling, and causing Keystone to realise and sell, the Bell Potter Securities in such manner as the receivers consider appropriate, at their quoted price based on the current market conditions at the time of realisation and sale and placing the proceeds in interest-bearing accounts”.
The liquidators first applied to sell the Bell Potter Securities holdings in early December.
“The Interim Distribution Proposal involves the sale of a significant proportion of the listed equities owned by Keystone as responsible entity of the SMF, being securities held through a custodian in an account with Bell Potter Securities Limited (the Bell Potter Securities),” Tracy wrote at the time.
“The five (5) investment classes of the SMF hold differing proportions of Bell Potter Securities relative to each investment class’s total assets. The Interim Distribution Proposal will, therefore, involve unitholders in some classes receiving more than unitholders in other classes.”
However, the Advantage Diversified Property Class (ADPC) does not hold any Bell Potter Securities, meaning that any unitholders in the ADPC will not receive any distributions from the sale of these equities.
“We consider that the structure of the investment classes within the SMF, and the legal arrangements governing the rights of unitholders in each class, do not permit any alternative to this outcome,” the liquidator said.
“We are working to recover other property for distribution to unitholders in the ADPC, but the timing of a future distribution to the ADPC class (if any) is unknown.”
