Mayfair's IPO Wealth marketing spend probed

Jonathan Shapiro and Liam Walsh

Aug 17, 2020 – 6.10pm

Subscribe to gift this article

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.

Already a subscriber?

Almost $2 million was spent annually marketing Mayfair 101’s IPO Wealth fund as an alternative to bank deposits, using everything from billboards to databases of share-trading website HotCopper, a court heard on Monday.

The founder of the troubled fund, James Mawhinney, revealed the marketing strategy amid an intense public examination in Victoria's Supreme Court on Monday as provisional liquidators quizzed him about the complex finance arrangement that lay below the surface of the aggressive advertising campaign.

Jonathan Shapiro writes about banking and finance, specialising in hedge funds, corporate debt, private equity and investment banking. He is based in Sydney.

Liam Walsh writes on investigations and companies with The Australian Financial Review. He has won multiple media awards, worked in Japan and is now based in Brisbane.