Surfers Paradise business identity Billy James says involvement with Huntington Health & Wealth Club on Gold Coast is in ‘name only’
Billy James is listed as one of the “founders” of the Mark McIvor-linked Huntington Health and Wealth Club – but all may not be as it seems. SUBSCRIBE TO READ THE FULL SAGA
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ONE of the listed “founders” of the Huntington Health and Wealth Club says he has almost nothing to do with the group and his involvement is in “name only”.
Surfers Paradise identity Billy James is listed as one of the founders of the community bank venture.
Other alleged founders include Allotz.com Ltd president Martin McConnachie and lawyer Zoltan Varszeghy who claims to be the “attorney general” for the Te Taou Maori tribe in New Zealand.
Last week, Mark McIvor denied being behind the project telling the Gold Coast Bulletin he was solely an “ad man”.
An information memorandum issued in March describes the venture as a “partner and investor opportunity” to develop a “licensed commercial and investment banking solution”.
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“The Huntington Club has been seeded (sic) breakthrough intellectual property (called Mi Algorithm of Wealth) to empower its members on a financial services pathway,” the brochure reads.
“Our mission is to re mutualise, as a laboratory, a blockchain based virtual city, to create a mutual banking and financial services ecosystem empowering peer-to-peer finance and capital solutions.”
Investors are asked to put their money into the club in return for training to “distribute and risk manage a capital solutions capacity” and digital currency token.
Mr James, who claimed he was not a founder of Huntington and should not be listed as such, said he had offered to help Mr McIvor with his mutual bank idea.
“I feel for him because we have all been through this sort of thing but his was a big hit,” he said.
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“So he has a fantastic idea of doing a mutual bank similar to a rural bank or a cooperative.
“That has fantastic ideals as a mutual because members should be able to partake of the spoils so to speak especially in these days of socialism getting much stronger.
“He has this Huntington financier, mate I don’t follow it all but I’ve said to him a couple of times I’m happy to give him a hand so that’s why my name is there. It is in name only.”
Mr James said the information memorandum was difficult to understand – a view he has expressed to Mr McIvor many times before.
“I have said to him, I can’t tell you many times, ‘Mark if you gave this to me Billy James and said go sell that I would rewrite all that sh**’.
“Forget the Huntington and all that sh**, start the mutual.
“If you call it the Mutual Australian Capital, I could get Surf Life Saving Australia, Rugby Union Australia, all those guys to say beauty because there would be a clip for all the clubs.”
Mr James said the memorandum needed to be simplified.
“I said it has got to be in normal speak. I would boil all that stuff he has to no more than four lines.
“But he loves going into blockchain and having a mutual coin. I said mate ‘no one is going to f****ing understand that and I do forex exchanges’.”
Asked if Mr McIvor was the right person to head up a mutual bank, Mr James responded: “Probably not.”
“If Billy James started a bank I’d get former premiers and have a board second to none that are quality and the integrity has to be utmost.
“Would Mark McIvor be a consultant to that group at a reasonable level? Absolutely.
“I think they (Equititrust) were hard done by.”
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EQUITITRUST founder Mark McIvor – once worth $150 million – has lived on the Gold Coast nearly his entire life.
His family moved to the Glitter Strip when he was seven and he was admitted to practise law at the age of 23.
Over the next quarter of a century he built up his law practice and then merchant bank into a powerhouse of the financial world, with $500 million in funds under management. Investors, mainly self-funded retirees, flocked to his funds lured by the promise of high-interest payments backed by property investment.
It’s an industry for which he reserves his greatest disdain.
“Banking is the dumbest industry on the planet apart from insurance,” Mr McIvor said this week.
Even his detractors admit he is a “savvy businessman” with “magnetic charm”.
However, the global financial crisis brought mortgage funds crashing down as developers who they lent money saw the value of their projects plunge.
Equititrust collapsed into liquidation in 2012 owing $260 million. Its investors, many of whom had tipped their life savings into its funds, saw a return of only a fraction of their money.
Mr McIvor does not admit to any responsibility for what unfolded. ASIC has banned him from ever providing financial advice again because of “serious, repetitive, prolonged and dishonest” breaches of financial services legislation.
He says he is a victim of “cleverly concealed fiduciary criminality” and “major bank misconduct” and “ASIC misfeasance”.
Mr McIvor says he was marketing a community bank with the headquarters at the Huntington Health and Wealth Club in Emerald Lakes.
“My simple issue here is this,” he said. “The four major banks are making $40 billion a year up from $10 billion. We have had five senate inquiries and a royal commission that unequivocally established that they engaged in aberrant criminality.
“I’m here to get restorative justice for them (the Equititrust investors).
“I’m here to create an environment where they can be safe from criminal attack.”
Investors who lost their money after Equititrust may not see it that way but Mr McIvor is undeterred.
The eviction of the Huntington club has also failed to put him off – he says it will just go online.
“I think if people knew the truth they may be less critical,” he said.
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