Mortgage House trades on

The majority shareholder of Global Mortgage Equity Corp, Ken Sayer, has avoided a forced sale or wind-up of his business, which includes the mortgage manager Mortgage House, after the Supreme Court of New South Wales dismissed a case brought by Sayer's former partner.

Zoltan Tomanovic had brought a case against GMEC in a bid to resolve a long-running dispute over the terms of a break-up of the partnership.

Tomanovic claimed that Sayer had acted oppressively, but the court found that Sayer had acted in good faith in negotiating the separation.

During the trial the judge, Robert Austin, had warned that because the dispute had gone on so long (Tomanovic and Sayer started negotiating the break-up in 2004) there was a prospect that, in the absence of any other solution, the court might order that the business be wound up.

But in the end Austin found that Tomanovic's case failed on all counts.

Tomanovic's allegations of oppression included claims that money was diverted from GMEC to benefit Sayer interests, that Sayer failed to make books and records available, to provide information or to convene annual general meetings.

The court said there was no basis for a finding of oppression.

Tomanovic and Sayer got together in the 1990s (exactly when was the subject of some dispute) to operate Mortgage House. Macquarie Group took a 10 per cent share of GMEC in 2003 but sold out to Sayer in 2008.

Mortgage House has a $2.3 billion portfolio.