Hours after Macquarie shut off Venture Egg from its super platform in mid-2023, the advice firm’s licensee InterPrac ordered all inflows into First Guardian and Shield to cease. But two months later, InterPrac took the halt off First Guardian.
The government has been largely silent through the Shield and First Guardian failures that could see 12,000 investors lose $1bn in super savings.
Venture Egg’s Ferras Merhi and Aus Super Compare’s Osama Saad, who are caught up in the investigation into the collapse of First Guardian and Shield, are banned from leaving the country.
Financial planning group InterPrac was so concerned about the huge sums of client money flowing into First Guardian and Shield it issued a halt, but advisers kept pouring money in and ASIC was never told.
Peter Spencer-Franks and his wife had a $1m savings pot and planned to retire last year. With the First Guardian collapse, retirement may no longer be an option | WATCH
Both the Shield and First Guardian funds had significant exposure to failed property developer Paul Chiodo, but one was investigated much earlier than the other.
Victims say financial advisers put their money into Shield and First Guardian without their knowledge, risking $1bn of wealth. Others were allocated to James Hird’s Euree, a top performing fund which has honoured all redemption requests.
‘If you’re not going to put your mum’s money in it, why would you put in someone else’s?’ Falcon Capital founder Simon Selimaj said to prospective investors in the First Guardian Super Fund.
First Guardian investors could lose all their super savings, as directors splashed out on a $9m mansion and Lamborghini while pumping client money into illiquid assets and channelling $242m offshore.
Kerr Neilson’s Platinum will be renamed as part of a $16.5bn merger that will see L1 try to turn around the fund manager’s chronic underperformance and outflows.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/cliona-odowd