Three vie for sub-prime car lender
The finance company behind sub-prime car lender Motor Finance Wizard remains in the red for the third year running, disclosure documents relating to the forced sale of the business show.The PR Finance Group made a loss of A$476,000 in the eight months to February 2013, following a loss of $28 million in 2012 and a loss of $800,000 in 2011.PR Finance made the disclosures in the context of a forthcoming shareholders' meeting that is to vote on an offer from Keybridge Capital.Keybridge, an activist debt investor, plans to take control of PR Finance as an alternative to forcing the financier into receivership after it defaulted on a A$14 million mezzanine loan.The scheme booklet for the shareholder meeting discloses that last year PR Finance attempted, but failed, to sell Motor Finance Wizard to Marubeni, a Japanese trading conglomerate whose main interests in Australia are in mining.Two other, potentially more lucrative, conditional offers are also under discussion, but, at this stage, Peter Llewellyn and Rod James, the founders and major shareholders, support the $2 million Keybridge offer.In a report to shareholders, BDO Corporate Finance observed that PR Finance was "currently experiencing financial distress", while Keybridge was in a position to place PRFG in receivership.The firm breached covenants on the senior loan from CBA late last year and defaulted on the mezzanine loan early this year.BDO concluded that the Keybridge offer was "not fair" but "reasonable".The firm has $87 million in lease receivables and $3 million in short term loans, through AMX and Kwik Finance, BDO said.