Ferras Merhi and Paul Chiodo cosy up to First Guardian victims’ Facebook support group
We were all aghast to learn of the many thousands of people who lost their retirement savings in the collapse of First Guardian. And not just First Guardian but also Shield, both shoddy investment funds led by chaps who either lost the money, plunged it into high-risk rubbish, or gobbled it up themselves and spent it on Floyd Mayweather.
Yes, literally Mayweather. They paid him to appear at a corporate event. Tyson Fury, too. Someone else went out and bought a Lamborghini. Another purchased a penthouse apartment for his wife. There was a $30m loan made to a craft brewery in Tasmania. To a hospitality business. To dubious real estate projects in Indonesia that probably won’t be recovered.
And some of it went to a character named Ferras Merhi. He ran the call centre that funnelled people into these doomed investment products, conduct dubbed “unconscionable” by the corporate regulator, ASIC. Because the clients all thought they were getting independent advice from Merhi. They didn’t have a clue he was simultaneously getting $18m in upfront fees for his services.
“They were allegedly channelled,” said ASIC, “into predetermined investment portfolios that were highly risky and served the financial interests of Mr Merhi and his businesses.”
Merhi’s denied all accusations of wrongdoing, as has everyone else involved in this staggering, shameful loss of money: $1.2bn in investor funds.
So, yes, aghast, but now add to that alarmed at the discovery that Merhi is trying to cosy up to the official Facebook Support group for the victims of First Guardian, Shield and the slithering managers of these funds.
This is no small feat; they have legitimacy, this group, and their efforts to recoup the money have been nothing short of heroic.
A week ago its administrators met in Sydney with ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland and executives Chris Savundra, Leah Sciacca and Brock Doubikin for an update on inquiries. ASIC’s already pursuing cases against Merhi and another chap, Paul Chiodo, the property developer who ran Shield, plus First Guardian founder David Anderson (who put money into Chiodo’s developments). And on top of them it’s chasing the big-name trustees, like Macquarie Group and Equity Trustees, who should have known better than to have facilitated this shonk.
Yet we hear Merhi’s been on the phone with Melinda Kee, the administrator of the Facebook group. We know because she posted a notice telling everyone he’s been assisting with inquiries, which is an unusual turn of events and just sweeter than pie in light of the allegations of what a right bastard he’s been to everyone (per the ASIC claims against him).
Chiodo’s in the henhouse, too, apparently, even though he’s an alleged architect of everyone’s misery. Kee told the Facebook group she’s already had “long conversations” with the developer, and on her account he’s willing to “have a group discussion (via teams) with investors” to assist where possible. Which you’d do, too, if you were in trouble. You’d get a few hundred people on the line, people who think you’re the devil, and you’d tweak the narrative of everything that went wrong.
But, no, there may well be master strategy at play. Maybe dealing with Merhi and Chiodo is a necessary evil; and maybe they can actually help. Or maybe the supposed villains in this story really do want to settle their accounts with 12,000 victims fleeced of their savings.
Kee told us that Merhi reached out after seeing all the tireless work being conducted by the Facebook support group.
“I accept that this has cost me my business, my reputation and my career,” he wrote. “It should not cost these families their dignity in retirement. For what’s it’s worth, I’m sorry and will try my best as humanly possible to do what’s right to help as many people as I can.”
And, according to Kee, he’s been helping ever since, so perhaps this shouldn’t sniff of the old fables, as it does at first blush.
Words but no deeds at JLL
Speaking of wolves in sheep’s clothing, the American bosses of global real estate punchline JLL have issued an internal memo updating their Australian staff on a review sweeping the organisation. By that we mean an audit of all the smutty language, poor behaviour and sexual harassment that’s been unearthed at the firm and published by this column; and maybe we only scratched the surface.
It’s the reasonable inference one draws from the note, signed by JLL’s global head of HR, Laura Adams, and its capital markets CEO Richard Bloxam, in which they announced the investigation would take “a few more weeks to complete”. But it’s the next bit that caught our attention.
“However we’re not waiting to act when we see behaviour that clearly violates our values. When sexual harassment or other misconduct comes to light, we’re taking immediate action,” they said, implying that someone, somewhere, had already felt the corporate broom, but neither Adams nor Bloxam went into it further.
Instead they spoke of being “deeply disappointed” by the trampling of JLL’s corporate values. Which makes sense, because JLL is supposed to be one of the most ethical companies on the planet, as it’s kept claiming for the past 18 years straight.
“These behaviours are unacceptable anywhere in the world, and we recognise the significant impact on our team. You deserve to be proud of where you work and the culture you are a part of, and we are committed to delivering that through our actions moving forward.”
But these actions weren’t specified. And neither were the “concrete steps” that Adams and Bloxam said they were taking to “build the culture” that the Australian team deserves. What they did say, promisingly, was that “actions speak louder than words”, and that they’re “committed to proving that through our decisions and behaviour”.
But then neither the actions nor the decisions were specified either, which was a let down. It was all heat, no light. And meaningless words, in the end, which won the day and spoke loudest.
