Causeway Asset Management will take control of the Seiza Group of companies following a vote by creditors on Wednesday. Seiza was a late entrant into mortgage funding and is one of the first to expire since it became impractical to raise finance to continue lending.Directors of Seiza called in Said Jahani and Paul Billingham from Grant Thornton as administrators in early September. A report to creditors prepared two weeks ago shows Seiza has deficiency in net assets of $26 million accumulated over three years. The firm incurred a loss of $14 million in the year to June 2008. Seiza had $1.1 billion in mortgage under management at September 2008. Of this, $239 million was funded through an ASX listed trust Seiza Augustus, and the remainder through a warehouse trust. RBS funded the senior debt in the warehouse trust while Goldman Sachs and Babcock & Brown (including the satellite Everest Babcock & Brown) were investors in the subordinated and equity tranches, and will bear most of the emerging loan losses.The report shows 16 per cent of the Seiza Augustus trust was in arrears at the end of September while 12 per cent of the warehouse trust was in arrears. Creditors considered two proposals for a deed of company arrangement; one from Causeway and a second from former executives. Creditors voted to accept the Grant Thornton recommendation to adopt the Causeway offer.Seiza owed $25.6 million to Causeway and the Premium Income Fund. Causeway used to be part of the MFS (now Octaviar) Group but separated from its partner in mid 2008. Wellington Investment Management took over responsibility for the Premium Income Fund from MFS around the same time.Jahani and Billingham estimate a return of 33 cents in the dollar to unsecured creditors. A full payout of staff entitlements, as well as a partial distribution to unsecured creditors, is likely only in the event that Causeway maximises earnings from the various mortgage trusts.