Stock tips site Kalkine pivots to investment banking amid probe over unlicensed advice

Australian stock tips company Kalkine is now offering investment banking and advisory through its UK outpost, amid a regulatory probe into providing unlicensed advice.

Kalkine chief executive Kunal Sawhney and staff in India at the company’s 2020 party.

An Australian stock tips company under investigation by the corporate regulator over allegedly targeting wealthy Australians and providing unlicensed advice is now touting investment banking and corporate consulting services despite a litany of complaints.

Kalkine, an “equity research” firm with headquarters in Australia, is now touting a vast array of financial services from its British arm Haanuwise, despite a litany of regulatory findings against it and ongoing probes into its high-pressure sales tactics.

Recent weeks have seen the company rebrand its British Kalkine operation, moving from attempting to sell high-cost email stock tip subscriptions to touting an array of complex financial services including investment banking and advisory services and merger and acquisition advisory.

However Haanuwise, which claims a “presence in 5+ locations globally” and an array of clients including “ financial service providers, wealth managers, hedge funds, globally listed and private corporates, boutique investment banks among others”, is not licensed to provide any of the services on offer.

Company records show Kal­kine’s British outpost has only been licensed to provide financial information through the media “without conveying the impression that the advice is particularly suitable for any person, except when it is given in response to a specific request for advice from that person”.

The offices of Kalkine and Haanuwise at 63 St Mary’s Axe in central London. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

Kalkine’s British business is registered to a house in rural England, but Haanuwise claims to operate from a nondescript serviced office in the centre of ­London.

When The Australian visited the British headquarters, staff at the serviced office claimed to be unaware of Haanuwise, Kalkine or any of the registered controllers of the company.

The Sydney financial services group, which purports to be a global research firm but is largely run out of the Indian city of Noida, has made a name for itself thanks to its high-pressure sales pitch and promises of riches from costly subscription offers.

The company operates under a similar model in Australia, with staff calling customers routinely claiming they worked from the firm’s Sydney office, while in fact being based in India.

Chief executive Kunal Sawhney has pitched himself as a self-made man, an entrepreneur, and a finalist in this year’s India Australia Business & Community Alliance managing director of the year award.

But instead he presides over a business boasting boiler room email sales tactics, supervised by family in India, while watching on from Sydney through security cameras placed throughout the office.

Company sources indicated the moves to rebrand Kalkine’s British business were an attempt to rescue its ailing sales campaigns in the wake of multiple regulatory probes and negative press.

Most recently Kalkine received a warning in New Zealand after again being found to be behaving badly.

In December New Zealand’s Commerce Commission warned the company was “likely to have breached” the country’s Fair Trading Act and misled consumers about their rights to cancel subscriptions.

This came soon after being again allowed to start making calls in the country after being earlier banned by the Financial Markets Authority in August 2022.

The Commerce Commission found Kalkine engaged in concerning conduct from December 2019 until at least July 2023.

Kalkine CEO Kunal Sawhney.

Kalkine is licensed to offer only general advice in Australia, but as revealed in The Australian, the company’s sales staff routinely advise subscribers to buy and sell particular shares, often dumping blue-chip holdings in favour of questionable small caps.

The company denies this, but continues to push its high-pressure sales targets, despite culling staff last year in the wake of reports revealing the company’s troubling practices.

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission has launched a probe into Kalkine after a number of complaints.

In a response provided to a Senate inquiry in December last year, the commission revealed it was examining whether Kalkine provided unlicensed financial advice. It said investors were concerned the company had provided poor service or no service, had breached anti-hawking provisions, engaged in misleading conduct, and was mishandling complaints.

ASIC noted it had not yet “reached any conclusion in relation to whether any regulatory action is available to be taken against Kalkine”.

But new documents released under freedom of information reveal ASIC has continued its probe into the company, with multiple briefs provided to the regulator’s enforcement committee, the latest of which was handed over in February.

ASIC’s enforcement committee was also given a short-form case update in September, which ASIC refused to release.

In its response, ASIC advised a “third party” had objected to the release of these documents, with the matter currently subject to a review.

Despite the ongoing regulatory probe, Kalkine continues to receive complaints over its heavy sales campaigns, with many customers lodging complaints with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority in an attempt to reclaim their funds.

However, investors report AFCA has failed to resolve multiple complaints, instead passing the matters back to Kalkine.

Investors report Kalkine has failed to engage or offered paltry refunds for the subscription services, often 10 times less than they initially paid.

Kalkine and Mr Sawhney did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Originally published as Stock tips site Kalkine pivots to investment banking amid probe over unlicensed advice