Babcock executives face grilling

The total includes a $100,000 donation from one noteholder who lost money when B&B collapsed under $3.3 billion of debt earlier this year.

In August, after B&B's liquidators, Deloitte, were initially appointed administrators, it appealed to the group's creditors for money to help question the key board members involved in the Babcock collapse.

The response was $270,000 contributed by the first closing date in mid-September, which was enough to encourage Deloitte to extend the plea for financial support.

Deloitte wrote to creditors on Monday to reveal that as well as another $180,000 pledged by dozens of other noteholders, one aggrieved investor had committed $100,000 on top of that, which would ensure the court examination of former B&B directors could go ahead.

Deloitte would neither identify the noteholder in question yesterday, nor say whether it was an institutional or personal investor. The liquidators, though, have been delighted by the success of the legal financing move.

"[We] are confident the funds received to date are sufficient to allow us to undertake an initial public examination of key resident Australian directors and management," the liquidator, David Lombe, told creditors in the letter.

The first hearings are due to take place in the Federal Court on November 25. Last week Deloitte filed applications to question the former B&B chief executive, Michael Larkin, his predecessor, Phil Green, the former chairman, Jim Babcock, and the directors Michael Sharpe and Susan Glenton about their roles in the company's collapse.

They also want to question the former management team about potential conflicts of interest involving B&B and its main subsidiary, B&B International, and alleged breaches of the Corporations Act.

Another area of questioning will centre on a $40 million loan made by B&B to the stockbroking firm Tricom last year.

The liquidators have asked the court to call the former Tricom founder, Lance Rosenberg, and the former B&B senior executives David Ross, Margaret Cole, Trevor Loewensohn, Eric Lucas and Rob Topfer, who took over from Mr Rosenberg at Tricom late last year.

In a separate development, Deloitte has appointed lawyers in California to represent the liquidators in an American court case aimed at recovering money for creditors from B&B employee incentive trusts.