Four directors of Capital + Merchant Finance have been booked under criminal charges immediately after the day the Security Commission started its investigations.

The four directors facing the charges are Neal Nicholls, Owen Tallentire, Colin Ryan and Robert Sutherland.

Similar charges have been imposed on former Director Wayne Douglas also who had left the company in February 2007.

The company underwent a receivership in November 2007, being unable to pay back $167 million to about 7000 investors.

The Commission said that the investors were misinformed by the company's prospectus and advertisements in August 2006. This gave way to wrong interpretation of the company's investment risks.

The Security Commission also revealed that these four directors presented false statements to the investors regarding the liquidity and cashflow in the prospectus dated 10 September 2007.

These charges come under the section 58 of the Securities Act and issue a penalty of five years of imprisonment or fines of up to $300,000.

The court hearing for the directors is scheduled for April 8.

The investors were initially misinformed that they shall receive less than 60% of their sum back, but this further fell by 10%.