The Statutory Managers of the Hubbard Management Fund say they went through an exhaustive and slow process of reconstructing the financial records of every investor back to the launch of the fund.

Now after five years, statutory manager Grant Thornton has released just over $35 million to investors.

Grant Thornton said poor financial recording over a long period of time generated statements to investors that were not completely supported by assets.

The statutory managers say they had to separately establish what assets the fund actually owned, and unravel related party transactions and loans.

They also had to seek court direction on the methodology to determine what investors were entitled to, and take time to sell assets.

After allowing for costs, investors received distributions which repay all original capital invested into the fund.

Some were also granted a small surplus by the courts.

But investor Noel MacPherson said while it's a relief, he and others feel cheated.

"The whole statutory management has been a disaster, it didn't need to happen."

"There were many other ways of correcting problems that were perceived, while the path that was taken was possibly the worst."

Mr MacPherson said the last five years have been a battle.

"It's been a constant strain of uncertainty, the lack of transparency in management had a lot of rhetoric but few facts."

Mr MacPherson is also disappointed the surplus was so small.