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-----Original Message-----From:
Rjsattorny@xxxxxxx <<A
href="mailto:Rjsattorny@xxxxxxx";>Rjsattorny@xxxxxxx>To:
Date: Thursday, November 30, 2000 11:43 AMSubject:
Newspaper Article
Judge OKs Independent Trust sale
<FONT color=#000000 face=Arial lang=0 size=2 FAMILY =
SANSSERIF>November 30, 2000
<FONT color=#000000 face=Arial lang=0 size=3 FAMILY =
SANSSERIF>BY TAMMY WILLIAMSON BUSINESS REPORTER A Cook County
Circuit judge Wednesday approved the sale of Orland Park-based Independent
Trust Corp., which was shut down by state regulators in April, but not
without a little courtroom chaos.Judge Sidney Jones III approved the $2.5
million sale to former Banco Popular trust executive James Boyd, who formed
Millennium Trust Corp.Independent Trust, also known as Intrust, will take
the Millennium name when the deal closes Friday.But a small uproar ensued,
laced with a few expletives, when an Orland Park investment adviser wanted
to delay the deal over a proposal that could limit how quickly customers
could get their frozen accounts out of Intrust.Intrust was seized by the
Office of Banks and Real Estate in April and placed into receivership after
$68.1 million of client money was found to be stolen. PricewaterhouseCoopers
is the court-appointed receiver that has been sorting out the mess and
determining how many of the 17,! 000 Intrust accounts will be assessed to
make up the $68.1 million shortfall.The sale Wednesday appeared to have
cleared a last hurdle after Pacific Financial Group Inc., an investment
adviser with clients whose money is invested in Intrust, withdrew its
protest of the sale. The Bellevue, Wash., firm last week had protested a
stipulation that would have given Boyd up to 180 days to process clients'
requests to transfer money out of Intrust.Boyd hopes to keep Intrust clients
from bailing out once the court unfreezes the assets. He plans to visit
investment advisers around the country early next month to tell how he will
protect investors from future problems.The court will unfreeze the accounts
once it determines how much to assess them for the $68.1 million. It should
know early next year.In court, Pricewaterhouse attorney Christopher Mott
announced Pacific Financial and the receiver had worked out their
differences. Now, Mil! lennium Trust would agree to process "at
least" 1,000 account transfers a month.That didn't sit well with Don
Linse, an investment adviser and founder of Cooper Linse Hallman in Orland
Park, which has 2,400 accounts with Intrust. Linse, through his attorney,
Stephen Bobo, asked Mott in court whether the 1,000 number included account
holders who wanted to simply liquidate their account. When Mott said yes,
Bobo told the judge he would have to talk to Linse before deciding whether
to lodge a protest."Don, don't do this," one courtroom member
said.Mott, visibly tense, barked: "We could go back to 180
days."Pricewaterhouse and Boyd were in a hurry to close the deal this
week because a bonus for employees who agreed to stay on at Intrust until
Dec. 8 will expire next week, and Pricewaterhouse would face tax
consequences if the company isn't sold by year-end.What's more, if the
company isn't sold, it would likely have to be liquidated,! with heady tax
consequences for investors.Linse, Bobo, Boyd and a posse of attorneys herded
out of the courtroom for 10 minutes. "What the - - - - are you
doing?" one participant shouted. Someone else accused Linse of trying
to "torpedo" the deal.The group hastily came to a compromise:
Millennium Trust would agree to process at least 500 liquidation requests
per month in addition to 1,000 transfers."It's not as much as we
wanted, but it's better than what it was before," Linse said.
LAW OFFICES OF ROBERT J. SHELIST
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