Troubled superannuation trustee Diversa says it has no guarantees from its private equity shareholders they will continue to support the business and protect the company from insolvency if forced to repay nearly $250 million to victims of the collapsed First Guardian investment scheme.
In a fiery hearing of Senator Deborah O’Neil’s joint parliamentary committee for financial services, Diversa chairman Vincent Plant also defended the board’s decision to award chief executive Andrew Peterson a $770,000 bonus in spite of the First Guardian failure and its own governance systems. The latter has also drawn sharp attention from regulators after the collapse, leading to several investigations and onerous licence conditions on…