Polled on a voluntary winding-up and “return of whatever value is left to shareholders”, Xinja Bank’s owners resoundingly voted it down, almost all of them.
No kidding, 99 per cent of shareholders voted No at yesterday’s Extraordinary General Meeting.
Then, 71 per cent voted to “support Xinja relaunching by aiming to build a wealth platform for 25-45 olds, starting with the US share trading platform”.
This is Dabble, which has not launched despite promoted as being due to launch months ago, and seems unlikely to ever do so.
Xinja have next to nothing left and need a bright, big buddy and a lot of luck to build a wealth platform and begin again.
And right now Xinja are in the APRA bad books, scheduled to hand back their ADI license; it’s a few weeks since residual deposit balances were palmed off to NAB.
Weirdly, at the EGM too few shareholders voted to change the name of the company to Xinja Holdings Limited.
Retaining the word bank in the name and operating a financial services business won’t wash with APRA, so a second EGM will be needed urgently.
Eric Wilson signed off the advice to shareholders last night, so Wilson – contrary to rumour – remains CEO of Xinja Bank.
It probably falls on the shoulders of the defiant 31 per cent of shareholders to restructure Xinja.
Some are said to believe they can still crystallise value via a last minute sale of the ADI license.
Xinja’s board were holding out for a dreamland exit valuation when things got tough last year and still could have sold the ADI for the price of a baked beans factory not so long ago.