While a small number of investors and advisers caught up in the frozen ING funds have vowed to keep fighting, the deadline for acceptances passed yesterday with a strong take-up of the settlement offer.
Dunedin financial planner Peter Smith said that 98% of his clients had accepted the ING offer and he was not aware of any who had taken the cash upfront.
He believed most investors in the frozen funds would have opted to take the offer of having their funds transferred to an ANZ account with an interest rate of 8.3% over five years.
That would mean the 60c units being worth around 91c in five years.
ING corporate affairs and marketing head Cynthia Church said exact numbers were still being worked out, but more than 95% of unit holders in the funds had accepted the offer, with about 85% selecting the five-year cash account option.
The acceptances with payment were still expected to be made by August 28.
Although the take-up of the offer had been strong, ING had received several requests from investors asking for more time for various reasons.
"It has always been our intention that all investors who wanted to accept the offer would be able to do so.
"We will therefore sympathetically consider any late acceptances received over the coming week, on a case-by-case basis," she said.
The estimated 13,000 investors who have had $700 million of their money locked into the diversified yield fund and regular income fund since March last year had until 5pm yesterday to accept ING's proposal.
The fund manager, which is 49% owned by ANZ, has offered to buy back units in the two funds at a rate of 60c a unit in the diversified fund and 62c in the regular fund.
Those who accepted the offer had to waive their rights to take, or benefit from, legal action or claims.
The Commerce Commission has been investigating ING and ANZ since December last year and could take legal action if it finds the companies mis-sold the funds under the Fair Trading Act.
However, such action could take months, or years, to complete.
Labour Party commerce spokeswoman Lianne Dalziel has pledged to begin drafting a private member's Bill allowing investors to gain the benefit of any legal action or settlement arising if the Commerce Commission finds any wrongdoing.
"It's disappointing the Government hasn't taken this step but I'm sure every MP who has received a letter from constituents caught in this trap of not knowing what to do will be more than willing to support this initiative."
Prime Minister John Key said he believed the company was genuine in its offer.
"There's been a proposal put up which would see people have their total capital funds effectively returned after five years with no interest, and takes into account some of the payments received in the past.
It's up to the Commerce Commission to adjudicate on that matter.
"It's an indication of how difficult the financial markets have been in the last year or so.
"The company is genuinely trying to work through and get an acceptable solution," he said.
Mr Smith said no-one could have predicted circumstances would have changed so much for the two ING funds.
The funds performed well in their early days as they were invested in good companies with senior debt.
"Circumstances changed and those companies disappeared.
"Who would have predicted Lehman Brothers, and other US merchant banks, would have disappeared?"
The Frozen Funds protest group believed most investors would sign because of their age.
"Most investors are retired and simply cannot wait for many years - wait for the Commerce Commission's report and then wait for ING and ANZ to exhaust all legal appeals.
"We believe ING and ANZ know this - our dates of birth are prominently pre-printed on the forms - and have built their strategy on this," Frozen Funds said.
