The Australian Securities & Investments Commission obtained Federal Court orders disqualifying Queensland director David Paul Hodgson from managing corporations for five years and permanently restraining him from engaging in financial services without an Australian financial services licence, following proceedings against Mr Hodgson and Paladin Group companies MacroLend Pty Ltd and Great Southland Limited. The Court found Mr Hodgson, MacroLend and Great Southland conducted an unlicensed financial services business between 2015 and 2023, during which MacroLend and Great Southland raised around AUD 109 million from investors. It also found Mr Hodgson and MacroLend engaged in “very serious” misleading or deceptive conduct in investor materials relating to investments in Kradle Software Pty Ltd, including a claim that Kradle Software held intangible assets of AUD 1.02 billion when its balance sheet recorded intangible assets of only AUD 11,180, a valuation the Court described as “entirely fanciful”. Further misleading claims included that MacroLend would use substantially all investor funds to grow Kradle Software and that the Kradle Software product would achieve a public listing on an overseas stock exchange; Great Southland, a Belize-registered entity, was also found to have operated unlawfully in Australia while unregistered for more than six years. Mr Hodgson, MacroLend and Great Southland were ordered to pay ASIC’s costs. ASIC began the Federal Court proceedings in February 2024, and the release notes Mr Hodgson had previously been banned for two years in July 2015 in relation to false statements in investment disclosures by Exalt Global Funds.

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