Melbourne solicitor Mark Elliott and barrister Norman O’Bryan, Senior Counsel (SC), will speak at the group’s next meeting to be held at the City Memorial Bowls Club from 12.15pm.

They will outline the next stages of the planned class action legal case against Banksia Securities and the associated Cherry Fund, the directors and auditors of the two companies and the Sydney-based Trust Company that had the job of protecting the interest of investors in the two companies.

The chairman of the South-West Banksia Investors Support Group, Russ Goodear, of Warrnambool, encouraged investors to attend the meeting.

Mr Goodear said more than 16,000 investors were involved in the class action and Monday’s meeting would tell how it was in their interests not to take up their option to ‘opt out’ of the class action.

In other developments, Mr Goodear said he had been liasing closely with the Kyabram Banksia investors support group that had about 400 members.

The Kyabram area in northern Victoria was the home of legal firm Morrison and Sawers’ mortgage practice that merged over the course of decades with the mortgage practices of other legal firms to become Banksia,

Mr Goodear also said he had applied to be part of a Banksia investors representative committee that will be appointed by Banksia’s receivers, McGrathNicol.

McGrathNicol has said the committee would act as ‘a sounding board’ for the receivers about various decisions.