About 13,000 ING investors are being urged by the Securities Commission to consider carefully the purchase offer for the two frozen funds they received from ING.
The offer related to the ING diversified yield fund and the ING regular income fund.
ING has offered to purchase all units from its investors in those funds at set prices and subject to conditions.
In particular, investors who accept the offer must agree to release ING and related entities, and investment advisers, from all legal claims in connection with the funds.
Dunedin financial adviser Craig Myles said yesterday that, for some investors, the ING offer would be the best solution.
"But it is a stretch to say this will be the case for all. Those that accept the offer without having their situation appraised independently run the risk of missing out on increasing their recovery potential on one hand or an unrealistic exception of additional recompense on the other."
Securities Commission spokesman Roger Marwick said the commission understood investors faced a difficult decision on whether or not to accept the offer because the outcome was uncertain.
The value of any legal claims they might have could not be quantified at this time.
"As noted in the independent expert's report sent out with the offer, the potential future value of the units in the funds is extremely difficult to calculate."
Investors should seek independent legal or financial advice and in this case, independent meant an adviser who did not stand to benefit from the release from legal claims, he said.
The commission had received a large number of complaints from investors and had reviewed the proposal documents sent out by ING.
Based on available information, the commission did not consider that the offer was misleading or deceptive.
The commission had no grounds upon which to take any action in respect of the proposal, Mr Marwick said.
Mr Myles said the ANZ had made it clear that some clients were not well advised and that the bank would look at those situations outside the scope of its offer.
A bank spokesman had indicated that investors should not have put all their money in the funds.
Low-risk investors should have had no more than 25% of their money in the funds.
Mr Myles said the advantage in taking independent advice before making a complaint to the Ombudsman's office was that the investor would get some sense of whether they had a realistic claim, as opposed to just having invested in something which did not work out.
"Each person's circumstances and situations are different and need to be assessed on the merits of their situation."
