Newcastle families demand to know what happened to their life savings

Instead, the business they built there has become the stuff of nightmares, leaving behind a trail of debt which looks set to wipe $10.5 million from families' savings and superannuation funds.

Most of the losses are from Hunter-based retirees' self-managed super funds.

Retired Merewether couple Don and Janine McLachlan are out of pocket $3.6 million in super.

Richard and Marlene Lloyd, also retired of Merewether, are missing $2.1 million from their self-managed super fund.

Like others who provided money to Funda for it to lend to small businesses and individuals, they are demanding to know what happened to their life savings.

It's estimated dozens of creditors are owed at least $13 million.

"We need to know how this happened," Mr McLachlan said.

"How did this all turn out so badly ... we just want to get to the truth."

Non-bank lender Funda, a fintech touted as an alternative to the big banks, was the brainchild of co-directors Mr Wright and Mr Owen, both of Merewether.

The pair have built profiles in Newcastle's surf life saving community and share a love of car racing.

Mr Owen was until recently the treasurer of Merewether Surf Life Saving Club and Mr Wright was a club member of 15 years and former rescue boat captain.

Past and present Hunter surf club members are among dozens of creditors facing the loss of millions.

Mr Wright, Funda's chief executive officer, is a former plant mechanic and, according to the company's now defunct website, "an experienced company director, with a background in finance, mining and earthmoving".

The 49-year-old loves living the high life and has a passion for fast cars and motorcycles. He's a Porsche fan, who has competed for several years in the iconic Targa rally with his wife Carol, who worked in administration for Funda.

A consummate salesman, Mr Wright looked every part the wealthy businessman behind the wheel of one of several Porsches he has owned over the years, including a high end Porsche 911 GT3.

He even travelled to Finland for Porsche's iconic ice driving experience, a bucket-list trip popular with celebrities.

For Carol's 50^th birthday, Mr Wright gave her a Porsche and a Mustang.

In a discussion paper circulated to creditors in April last year, in which Mr Wright informed them that "during the short to medium term" Funda would not be able to meet its ongoing loan payments, his outlook appeared positive as he proposed a company restructure to keep the business operating.

"We believe this plan will position us for long-term success and sustainability, and we are committed to delivering on these goals for our customers, employees and shareholders," he wrote.

But at a meeting at Merewether surf club six months later, as pressure increased from creditors desperate to find out what happened to their money, Mr Wright's outlook was grim.

He told creditors "we are broke" and admitted Funda's loan book was valued at about $500,000.

"That loan book is not going to satisfy anyone to any great extent, and there are no other reserves, no money, no assets sitting anywhere that are tangible," he said.

"The major investments in the company are technology and systems and process, and are obviously out of date anyway and would have no real value to anyone."

It's a meeting Mr McLachlan will never forget.

"We walked away from there knowing full well that they'd given up and we were stuffed," he said.

"So how did this happen and how did it go so quickly from everything is going great to everything is a disaster?"

Mr Wright told the Herald this week that everything would be detailed in the liquidators report, but there was "no cupboard full of money".

"That is something that will be shown, that none of the investors have paid for my lifestyle, or Mark's for that matter," he said.

"We've all lost considerable amounts of money and it's not a situation anyone predicted or wanted."

He said like many business owners he had no assets in his name, which was a structure he'd had in place for decades and did not make a secret about it.

Several of Mr Wright's family members are among the creditors.

Mr Owen, Funda's chief financial officer, is a former electrician who boasts "having more than 15 years experience as a company director".

He too loves car racing and was part of his nephew Bradi Owen's race team last year in the Toyota 86 series.

Funda was a "partner" of the family-based team, which competed at Bathurst, with Funda's logo featuring on the car and team outfits.

At the unofficial creditors meeting in October, both directors were quizzed by Mr Lloyd about their commitment throughout 2023 to saving Funda.

"Mark, you've spent a hell of a lot of time in the last six months off car racing and all that stuff," Mr Lloyd said.

He then went on to detail "at least eight occasions" between May and October that he claimed Mr Wright had "taken long weekends".

"You want a commitment from us to support you guys for a little bit further, but I want a commitment from you blokes that this crap is going to stop and you're going to have your nose to the wheel," Mr Lloyd said.

"You're going to put 100 per cent focus on what you need to be doing to get this company going forward because, like I said, it is everything to us and to me what you've both shown in the last five months is you don't give a damn really, I can't be bothered, too hard."

Both directors responded by telling the creditors they had also been working while they had been on the trips.

"It's not a turn the lights on at 9 o'clock and turn them off at 5," Mr Wright said. "It's reacting to when the opportunities come up."

The meeting heard some creditors face losing their homes.

It's a long way from the $60 million empire the directors planned to build by 2021.

"We have a bold vision for small to medium business in Australia," Funda's website read.

"We envisage a future where SMEs (small-to-medium enterprise) take control back from lenders feasting on their assets."

Sadly for the people who gave money to Funda, and later related company Collaborating, that is exactly what the companies did.

In an email to Mr McLachlan in July 2018, Mr Wright valued the business at $6 million.

"With our current projections we are looking to achieve 10 times growth and value over the next two years, which we want you guys to share in as thank you for your ongoing support," he wrote.

The email was accompanied by an attached "financial model" detailing the $60 million projection.

Mr Lloyd, who considered Mr Wright his "best mate" for 20 years, said he was still in shock.

The retired mineworker said his family lived a "very simple life" and had saved for decades to enjoy retirement.

"I have no idea how this has happened, or where the money went," he said.

"To say this is devastating doesn't even go close. We want answers from the people tasked with running the business because it makes no sense to us how so much money can just disappear."

People who provided money to Funda received interest payments of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent, which helped grow their super funds.

This was then often loaned back to Funda.

Creditors want to know how Funda went from having a client loan book worth about $12 million in 2019, to it being worth about $500,000 last year.

Funda, also known as Ownright, and Collaborating, was placed in voluntary liquidation in December.

Creditors are eagerly awaiting the first report of liquidator Bradd Morelli, of Jirsch Sutherland, due in March, to find out what went wrong.

A long trail of debt has resulted in an equally long list of angry creditors.

According to the directors, there was only $109.80 and $46,107 in Collaborating and Funda's bank accounts respectively when the companies collapsed.

It's a long way from the $10.5 million loaned to Funda and Collaborating, by people and their super funds.

According to a discussion paper circulated by Mr Wright in April, which detailed Funda's performance since 2016, the business reached it's peak in 2019.

That year it wrote 180 client loans, valued at more than $9 million and the company's loan book was estimated to be worth $12 million.

By the following year, the loan book value started to drop.

In 2020, there were about 120 loans written, with $4 million in loan funds distributed to clients and the loan book was valued at about $11 million.

The slump continued in 2021, with fewer than 100 loans written, valued at less than $2 million, but the loan book was still estimated to be worth $8 million.

In 2022, around 70 loans were written, valued at just under $2 million and the loan book size dropped to $5 million.

The downturn continued until the business was placed in liquidation in December last year, following failed discussions about voluntary administration in March.

When questioned about the liquidations, Mr Wright and Mr Owen said they too were victims.

Both men blame the collapse on the pandemic and the broader economic conditions facing Funda, pointing to competitors that are also struggling.

Mr Wright said in the discussion paper that one of Funda's key partners, International Acceptance (IA) Group, changed hands in late 2021 to Resimac.

This restructure meant that Funda became a broker for Resimac products, instead of offering its own products.

At the October meeting, Mr Wright described a proposal sent to creditors in an effort to keep the businesses operating as "just that" and said after "previous institutions" withdrew their support for Funda, it was now operating as a broker, not a lender.

"Is it feasible, I don't know," he said, about the proposal to keep the business operating.

"Is it just trying to hang on and try to put everyone in a better spot than they are now, probably, and I don't think in the current climate, I don't know if those numbers are feasible."

Mr Owen confirmed that Funda was trying to generate "brokerage income, rather than writing loans".

"We are effectively now a broker of loans, rather than a lender in the current situation we're at, but it still generates income," he said.

The pair also pointed to a big increase in bad debts from 2021, including a loan to a motorcycle company for $2.4 million that was written off.