Broker Angus Aitken turns to top silk in ANZ ‘sexism’ row

Stockbroker Angus Aitken has stepped up his battle against ANZ after he lost his job at Bell Potter.

Former Bell Potter broker Angus Aitken plans his next move. Picture: John Feder

Stockbroker Angus Aitken has stepped up his battle against ANZ, briefing defamation and corporate law barrister Bruce McClintock SC for a potential action after he lost his job at Bell Potter over allegations of sexism made by the bank.

In a move that could draw ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott into the row, Mr Aitken has told friends he is “determined to pursue all available legal remedies’’ against those involved at ANZ.

The former head of institutional equities at Bell Potter has reached an “amicable arrangement’’ with the firm that forced him out after a backlash last week against his appraisal of the bank’s new chief financial officer Michelle Jablko.

Mr Aitken was accused of sexism by the general manager of corporate affairs at ANZ, Paul Edwards, after telling clients in a note last week that investment banker Ms Jablko was “one of the dumber appointments I have seen’’.

He said “investment bankers tend to be crap at most things in the listed world” and cited Ms Jablko’s work as an adviser to Slater & Gordon on the disastrous $1 billion British acquisition of Quindells.

A day later Mr Edwards tweeted the note with the line “sexism alive + well in stockbroking”, a mention that was “liked’’ by Mr Elliott and set off a social media storm.

Despite initial denials by ANZ, Australia’s fourth biggest bank, that it had applied any pressure, it has since emerged that Mr Elliott contacted Bell Financial Group executive chairman Colin Bell to express his disappointment about the note ahead of attending a briefing to the firm’s retail stockbrokers on Friday.

Mr Aitken had asked, through defamation lawyer Mark O’Brien, for the bank to remove the tweet, but it has so far refused. He is seeking compensation and a public apology.

Yesterday Mr Aitken circulated a note to friends saying Mr O’Brien had briefed Mr McClintock to “commence legal proceedings without delay’’.

“I am determined to pursue all available legal remedies against those involved at ANZ for the loss of both my good reputation and career as a stockbroker,’’ Mr Aitken said in the note.

Mr McClintock is the barrister who represented former Treasurer Joe Hockey in his successful defamation action against Fairfax Media and billionaire iron ore miner Gina Rinehart in her dispute with her children over a family trust.

It is the latest in a series of scandals to afflict ANZ, with the bank this week accused in the Victorian Supreme Court of racism over its seizure of Pankaj Oswal’s Burrup Fertilisers.

The bank is also defending claims by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission that its traders manipulated the financial markets benchmark, the bank bill swap rate, as well as a wrongful dismissal action by some of those same traders that alleges the bank’s culture tolerated bigoted comments and drug taking.

Mr Aitken’s note did not make an issue of Ms Jablko’s gender and brokers and leading business women have rejected the allegation of sexism.

But it has also highlighted the tensions amid a generational change in corporate culture, and has raised questions about the extent of free speech, political correctness and conscious or unconscious sexism in the workplace.

The industry peak body, the Stockbrokers Association of Australia, has also criticised Mr Edwards for tarring the whole industry in his comments on the matter.

Mr Edwards has since defended his comments, saying such criticisms “would never have been said about a similarly qualified man’’.

Mr Aitken, whose wife Sarah is a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, has been a colourful fixture in Australian stockbroking, known for his sharp stock calls and pithy language.

But in December he was subjected to an enforceable undertaking by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission after passing confidential client information about a trade in Ten Network Holdings to Phillip King of Regal Funds Management.

Angus and brother Charlie joined Brent Potts at institutional broker Southern Cross Equities before it was sold to largely retail broking firm Bell Financial for $150 million in 2008.

Charlie left the firm last year to set up his own funds business, Aitken Investment Management.

Angus Aitken’s departure leaves only James Unger from the team at Southern Cross, after Mr Potts had already left the firm in 2012.

Mr Bell has said Mr Potts was censured over his involvement in a capital raising for the notorious Cascade Coal deal involving NSW Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid.

Mr Potts has denied this.