UPDATED 1.56pm: People who invested in the Hanover finance companies eight years ago will be looking at getting part of an $18 million settlement payout.

But the Financial Markets Authority believes taking the Hanover finance companies to court would have resulted in a lesser settlement for investors.

The Financial Markets Authority estimates it's spent about 3.5 million dollars investigating the Hanover finance companies, and staff have also spent 10 thousand hours working on it - including an asset preservation case, specifically against former director Mark Hotchin.

Head of enforcement Belinda Moffat says they've been in close contact with the investors who lost out eight years ago - and they wanted an outcome.

She says they couldn't deliver a court decision immediately, so their focus was on providing certainty through this settlement now.

The FMA filed the law suit in 2012 against Hanover owners Mark Hotchin and Eric Watson along with directors Greg Muir, Tipene O'Regan, Bruce Gordon and Dennis Broit.

The FMA has instead reached an $18 million settlement in its civil proceedings against the former directors of the companies.

FMA chief executive Rob Everett said the focus was to get the most money they could for investors - and they believed this settlement was it.

"We acknowledge that the sums involved for many of these investors won't be a huge amount of money, but going to a trial will only reduce that amount and delay us significantly."

The money will be distributed to eligible investors who invested in the Hanover Finance Ltd (HFL), Hanover Capital Ltd (HCL), United Finance Ltd (UFL), in the period from December 7, 2007 to July 23, 2008.