Financial planners Warren Acworth and Tim Shapter banned by ASIC

The corporate watchdog has come down hard on a couple of Queensland financial planners with one receiving a permanent ban after lying to a client 19 times, alongside moving money and making trades without proper authority.

ASIC has banned two Queensland financial planners.

TWO Queensland financial planners have felt the lash of the corporate cop this month.

ASIC slapped a permanent ban on Brisbane bizoid Warren Acworth from providing financial services.

The regulator found that Acworth, while working for Macquarie Equities, lied to a client 19 times over the value of his portfolio, made trades without proper authority and moved $185,000 between accounts without authority.

Separately, City Beat has learned that between 2011 and 2015 he served on the board of the Iona College Foundation, a charitable arm of the Catholic boys school based in the bayside suburb of Lindum.

Meanwhile, financial adviser Tim Shapter has also been hit with a seven-year ban from the industry.

The license for his Smart Solutions Group, which had offices in both Brisbane and the Gold Coast, has been cancelled, as well.

ASIC determined he provided “inappropriate switching advice’’ to clients to shift them into higher fee-paying products and made hasty decisions on their behalf without properly determining their needs and circumstances.

“He usually issued his superannuation statements of advice on the same day that the initial client enquiries were made by the third party,’’ the agency said.

Neither Acworth nor Shapter could be reached for comment yesterday. Both have the right to lodge an appeal.

FIST PUMPS

It was fist pumps and high fives all around the boardroom table on Wednesday as Data#3 delivered a cracking half-year result.

The Brisbane tech outfit reported a whopping 41.5 per cent spike in net profit to $8.7 million. Revenues climbed nearly 12 per cent to $719 million over the six months through December.

Laurence Baynham CEO of Data#3.

No surprise then that boss Laurence Baynham declared himself “very pleased’’ with the performance.

Investors agreed, sending the stock up 2 per cent to $4.73.

SOMBRE MOOD

By contrast, the mood was quite a bit more sombre at Corporate Travel Management, which has been clobbered by the Coronavirus and suffered a 14 per cent drop in net profit to $35.1 million.

The Brisbane firm, headed by founder Jamie Pherous, now expects the growing China-focused health crisis to shave between $15 million and $45 million off its full-year earnings.

Pherous put on a brave face, claiming “steady operating momentum’’ even as he once again pointed to the dated bogeymen of Brexit, Hong Kong turbulence and the US/China trade war for hurting growth.

But analysts noted that CTM’s cash flow conversion amounted to just 27 per cent, the worst in five years. One source even labelled it “an absolute disaster’’ and predicted more broker downgrades for the stock.

The shares fell sharply at the opening bell, down 13 per cent to $14.14. Yet, after some wild swings, it closed at $16.21, essentially unchanged from the day before but far below recent highs.

Corporate Travel Management founder Jamie Pherous.

Even the conference call with brokers yesterday morning went pear-shaped.

In a remarkable bit of timing, the phone line came unstuck after the prepared remarks from Pherous, meaning virtually no questions got asked.

Robert Luciano, who has a vested interest in seeing the share price tank since his hedge fund, VGI Partners, shorted the stock in 2018, didn’t hold back yesterday.

“Today we witnessed the end of the Corporate Travel growth spiel. Without a major acquisition to muddy the waters, margins are coming under pressure and (underlying) net profit was down nearly 10 per cent – and this result covers the pre-Coronavirus period,’’ Luciano said.

VGI savaged the CTM accounts in a blistering report issued in 2018 and Luciano alleged that a raft of new problems have been uncovered.

“Once again we are left scratching our heads over a bunch of new red flags in the Corporate Travel accounts,’’ he said.

“For example, the company claims to be growing booking volumes and revenue, yet volume-based incentives were down on last year. This doesn’t make any sense for what is supposedly a growth business and thus further fuels our well-documented concerns that prior year profits have been flattered by aggressive accounting treatment.”