Perpetual Trustees WA yesterday obtained an order from the Federal Court to appoint PricewaterhouseCoopers as receivers to Elderslie Finance Corporation.The failure of Elderslie is another blow for the dwindling debenture market in Australia, and the retail investors that continue to fall for the higher interest rate carrot dangled in front of them - often not fully understanding the risks involved.Elderslie had $149 million in funds raised through debentures at May 2008, and with a predominately retail debenture base of around 3000, each investor has average funds with the firm of $50,000."If we assumed 100 per cent redemption rates, between the period of July and December 2008, Elderslie has redemption obligations of $38.29 million," said Chris Green, Perpetual general manager trust and fund services.Green, though, does not expect any more actions against Elderslie."At this stage, no we are not. We are working with all the other secured creditors, and on a background basis we hope they would be comfortable with somebody like Greg Hall and Philip Carter from PwC being in place and taking control of proceedings."A spokesperson for Adelaide Bank confirmed the bank had appointed receivers over some specific Elderslie assets."The total exposure to the bank is $7 million - assets covering this exposure are valued at $12 million. We don't expect to incur any loses from the action."Perpetual, as trustee for Elderslie, yesterday made payments, due yesterday, on distributions due to investors in an asset-backed security sold in 2006, though Standard & Poor's said the firm was still to transfer about $2 million from payments made on underlying receivables to the required trust accounts. The Elderslie website is already plastered with the immediately enforceable court order, with incoming calls directed to a recorded message referring to the previous day's Federal Court judgement.In an interview with The Sheet published 28 April 2008, then director of Elderslie, James Garrett, said, "What I would also say is helping leasing is that businesses, up until the recent credit crunch, have had a lot of cash so they have been buying assets."So with liquidity tightening up and cash disappearing, for us we are seeing a benefit out of that."I think we are seeing a higher level of enquiries purely due to fewer competitors. A couple of our competitors have gone broke."Garrett and John Hewson (the chair of the firm's board) resigned from Elderslie director roles on 3 June 2008, two days before Perpetual launched action.As to why Perpetual appointed receivers and not administrators, Green commented, "We have a fixed and floating charge over the whole of Elderslie, and all of its guaranteed subsidiaries - and with that type of security the normal course is that a receiver is appointed."So a receiver is primarily responsible for recovering on behalf of Perpetual Trustees and all of its debenture holders."An administrator is normally appointed by the directors to look after, and work through, all the creditors."We appointed a receiver because a receiver is there to act in our interests, primarily. "PwC will now co-ordinate communications with debenture holders