Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

Storm Financial Group

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Solly said:
gg,

If it doesn't look like things are making progress with the inquiry, examinations, etc why don't we invite EC & JC down to Gloria Jeans at Cannon Hill Plaza for a friendly chat, a couple of cappuccinos and some filo pastries.

We could then get the real inside story of what actually happened and we could then post the transcripts on ASF for all to see. I could pick you up from the Airport in my Toyota Crown, pick up EC & JC and head off to the Plaza. I'm sure we could get to the bottom of what happened by the end of the second filo. It shouldn't take long and this could all be done on a day trip and no need for the inconvenience of an overnighter.

If you think this is a good idea I could drop an invite in their letter box in London Rd.

This could be a real scoop, may be we could ask fellow forum members & Stormers if there are any questions we should pose....
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me. Toyota Crown, one of the best motors the Japs ever made. Just give me some notice, as with the mines starting to ramp up again the business class seats are getting booked out about 5 days ahead.

gg

gg
 
Solly said:
Don't forget what's coming up.

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and
Financial Services

Inquiry into financial products and services
Date Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Start 5.00 pm – 9.30pm
Venue Committee Room 2S3
Address Parliament House, Canberra 2600

5.00 pm – 6.00 pm
Macquarie Bank Limited
Mr Richard Sheppard, Managing
Director and CEO
Mr Peter van der Westhuyzen,
Executive Director

6.00 pm – 6.30 pm Dinner break

6.30 pm – 8.30 pm
Commonwealth Bank
Mr Ralph Norris, Chief Executive Officer
Mr David Cohen, Group General Counsel
Mr Ian Narev, Group Executive,
Business & Private Banking
Mr Matthew Comyn, Executive
General Manager, Equities & Margin Lending
Dr Brendan French, General Manager Customer Relations

8.30 pm – 9.30 pm Witness(es) to be confirmed

9.30 pm Adjournment
Click to expand...

Its a joke! The individuals who were in charge and knew what was going on are not even on the list. Where is Edward Tait, John Clothier (head of ML) and Kamal Arnout (soley dedicated to Storm loans)!!!
Oh thats right they have been let go! How convenient so they replace them with people that have no knowledge and can only anwser about the procedures now and not what was happening then.
Reeks of corruption again!!
Very disappointing that it is going to be allowed to happen.
 
Garpal Gumnut said:
Sounds good to me. Toyota Crown, one of the best motors the Japs ever made. Just give me some notice, as with the mines starting to ramp up again the business class seats are getting booked out about 5 days ahead.

gg

gg
Click to expand...

Ah GG once again putting in suttle remarks to nuture that ego!! What was wrong with just seats are booked!!! You should have gone with first class and then everyone would think you are a real legend having that much money to waste on flight which only takes 1 1/2hrs?? Do they even do first class on domestic?? International my bet! Hey just hire out EC's jet then you can have all the room you want!! LOL
 
Mr Turner probably does not realise that while he may have turned off the trailing commission, the $200 pa does not go to him but remains with the fund manager. Ah, those MER's. How sweet they are!

That, and other reasons, is why I ditched unlisted managed funds quite a few years ago.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/end-of-the-trail-for-macquarie-fee-terminated-20091018-h2v6.html

End of the trail for Macquarie: fee terminated
STUART WASHINGTON
October 19, 2009

A BRISBANE fire alarm technician, Geordie Turner, got on the phone pretty quickly last month when he found he was paying money to a business half-owned by Macquarie Bank, more than six months after he lost the bulk of his savings in Storm Financial's collapse.

"Financially I'm destroyed," he told BusinessDay. "There are so many people whose lives have been totally destroyed."

So when Mr Turner, 55, found his money was benefiting Macquarie Bank, a business he blames for much of the pain he endured in Storm Financial's collapse, he said he was disgusted.

Mr Turner, who previously held a Macquarie margin loan, was among those in the ruins of Storm Financial who had some money left to the side: about $45,000 in a Challenger unit trust.

Last month he realised he was paying a trailing commission of about $200 annually to a financial planning business, Financial Index Australia, which was 49 per cent owned by Macquarie Bank. "I phoned Challenger [and said], I don't have a financial adviser; I don't want them to be my financial adviser."

Trailing commissions are paid to many financial planners for placing their clients in investments, usually as a percentage of the investment paid annually.

Mr Turner successfully switched off the trailing commission, but he fears other former Storm Financial clients of Macquarie may unwittingly find themselves in the same position.

More.........
Click to expand...
 
"Storm email not unusual, says PwC"

"PricewaterhouseCoopers insisted failed advisory firm Storm Financial pre-pay a $50,000 invoice when it discovered the extent of the company's financial troubles."

Read more by Michelle Singer in The Australian Financial Review of October 19 2009.
 
"It's margin lender's duty: Storm witness"

"The woman who led Storm Financial's compliance unit with co-founder Julie Cassimatis said it was the margin lender's responsibility to inform clients of a margin call, not the financial advisory company."

Read more by Mark Ludlow and Duncan Hughes in The Australian Financial Review of October 20 2009.
 
Garpal Gumnut said:
Sounds good to me. Toyota Crown, one of the best motors the Japs ever made. Just give me some notice, as with the mines starting to ramp up again the business class seats are getting booked out about 5 days ahead.

gg

gg
Click to expand...


Yes, gg I like to 'fly' under the radar a bit sometimes, although the Arnage is definitely a damn fine motor as well. I should make it to the Hearing today and I hope there's more exciting action and revelations. Although I'll probably will miss the early bird undercover parking at the Holiday Inn and I don't like to leave the Crown parked on the street for too long. Those unpredicted dust storms make a real mess of the vinyl roof. Although there is a loading zone behind Police HQ I can get away parking in for a while, I might take your direction about paying parking fines from your other thread.

Hopefully the Inqury and the Hearing will extract enough detail and information to get to the root cause of this event. Although even just a social chat with the principals would be quite enlightening. Maybe we could skip the filos, I don't think they need the extra carbs. :p:
 
Mindstorm said:
Bunyip,

I apologise, to you, and anyone else who I may have upset on this forum.

I am in a very raw position. You are right, I am lashing out. Apologies again to anyone that I may have offended, including yourself.

I just don't see any way that I can take my family out of this mess that I have put us in. This is not anyone's fault but my own.

MS
Click to expand...

Mindstorm

I admire you for having the character to make a public apology.
Your apology is accepted - no hard feelings at all on my part.

Is your personal situation really as dire as you seem to think? Can you really not see any prospects for your future?
I recall that in an earlier post you spoke of the retirement you'd planned in 20 years or so. That suggests to me that you're in your forties, with a good 20 years or more left in the workforce.
20 years X 50 grand a year means you can earn 1 million dollars before retirement - more if your wife works as well, even part time. More again if you save money along the way and invest it in growth assets like residential real estate and blue chips shares.
You don't know anything about share investment? LEARN.
You don't know anything about real estate investment? LEARN.
There's lots of information available - some of it is in the form of books costing only $30 - $40, much of it is free. It's just a matter of opening your mind and putting in some effort to educate yourself.
For information about share investment, Google Stan Weinstein and Alan Hull. From these two men you can learn how to safely invest in stocks without losing your shirt.
Unlike Storm Financial, they employ strict risk management, they trade with the trend, they trade in the strongest sectors of the market, and they don't adopt a HAH (hold and hope) attitude when a bear market sets in.
For information about real estate investment, I'm sure you'll find something of value if you Google Margaret Lomas and read some of her books.

You don't earn 50 grand a year? Then start earning it! Go back to 'school' if necessary. With two years of solid study you can become a registered nurse in Queensland. Maybe you don't want to be a nurse, but you get my drift.....if your current job or income are not satisfactory, there are various courses you can do to improve your employment and income prospects. Get your wife to work part time as well, if she's not already doing so, even if it's some ordinary job such as a domestic in a hospital or whatever. Between the two of you there should be no problem in pulling an income of 50 or 60 grand a year or higher.
Have you considered a job in the mining industry? Machine operators can earn 100 grand a year, and the rapidly expanding iron ore industry in WA will need an additional 6000 staff over the next few years. Many people with no machinery experience get trained as machine operators in the mines.
Many interstate people work in WA on a FIFO basis (fly in fly out). I beleive some of them work two weeks on and one week off, and fly home to their home state every few weeks.
I know all this because just a few days ago I spoke to a young woman who works in one of the WA mines - one of my daughters has considered going over there for a few years to set herself up financially.
Here again, maybe a mining job wouldn't suit you, or maybe you already have a good job. All I'm doing is pushing a few ideas your way to get you to see the possibilities.
Taxation? Your losses from your investment with Storm can be offset against your income, reducing income tax or perhaps even putting you in a tax-free situation for a number of years.

You're drowning under heavy mortgage payments? If your mortgage payments are considerably more than it would cost you to rent a house, then perhaps you should consider telling the bank to take your house, and you walk away and start again from scratch.
With 20 years of working life in front of you and your wife, you could achieve a lot financially in that time if you play your cards right. That comfortable retirement you dreamed of is still within your reach.

Look - I'm no stock market or real estate or investment guru, I'm just an ordinary bloke whose been up a few dry gullies in his time. I've known adversity, and I've come through it by being positive, by looking ahead at what can be, rather than looking backwards at what was.
I don't know your personal situation. I don't have all the answers for you. I'm just trying to give you hope for the future by showing you your potential.
I feel pretty sure that you'd still have the love and support of your family. What an asset that is.....with them behind you, and some determination and positive thinking on your part, who knows what you can achieve!

Mate, I don't want to hear any more of that destructive self-criticism crap that you've been going on with. Every minute spent in denigrating yourself about how stupid you've been, is one less minute you have for planning your future.
Now get stuck into it
And any time you're feeling a bit down, remember that the old Bunyip has faith in your ability to get your life back on track.

All the best
Bunyip
 
Bunyip you had some great words of encouragement on your last post and I'd like to thank you for those. There are hundreds of storm clients who are in really dire straights and to lose everything you own, as Mindstorm and others have said, is not easy to recover from as most of us are on the maximum amount of anti depressants etc that is available to us just so that we can somehow come to terms with it. After twelve months the depression is almost impossible to overcome when you've seen everything you own go down the gurgler.

The other issue we face is 'can we ever trust anyone again'. I bet there are a lot of ex stormers who will never go anywhere for investment advice again. I will never sign a 'statement of advice' again and would advise anyone seeing a financial advisor to get them to sign the statement of advice to guarantee their advice. If there are genuine financial advisors out there they would be happy to guarantee their advice. Perhaps we need the whole industry shaken up, cleaned out and completely overhauled. The payment of trailing commissions should be stopped completely. At present financial planners do not have to guarantee their advice and they are able to wriggle out of any legal implications by getting clients to sign outdated paperwork. I know that some of you say that there are genuine people out there but at present it is too hit and miss for the first time investor.

What is your suggestion for ex stormies who are close to retirement or have retired completely, is there any way that they have a financial future or is that it for them?
 
Unfortunately I couldn't make it to Harrys today. But I do believe that there was quite a sad story of some massive losses from up Rocky way. Hope the scribes present post some telling detailed articles of the proceedings.

Once again I believe that it was stated that it was hoped that the association between Storm and the Comm Bank was strong enough to save the Stormers from the pending GFC disaster.

Today's transcript should be quite interesting.
 
"Words a debt-laden client didn't want to hear"

"The co-founder of failed advisory firm Storm Financial told one of his clients they "were screwed" when their investments were sold, leaving them with a $2.3 million mortgage, a court heard yesterday."

Read more by Michelle Singer in The Australian Financial Review of October 21 2009.
 
Harleyquin said:
Bunyip you had some great words of encouragement on your last post and I'd like to thank you for those.

What is your suggestion for ex stormies who are close to retirement or have retired completely, is there any way that they have a financial future or is that it for them?
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Harleyquin

I don't have any suggestions that could solve the problems of Stormers who are at or near retirement age.
The best I can do is tell you about some words of wisdom I read many years ago.....

When you're in a situation that's troubling you, think of the worst case scenario that could arise from your situation. Then ask yourself if you can handle that scenario if it eventuates. For most people, the answer is yes.

This knowledge - that you can handle the worst that your situation deals up to you - can give considerable comfort in times of trouble.

I imagine that the worst case scenario for Stormers of retirement age is the possibility of living the rest of their lives in rented accommodation, and being dependent on the aged pension. This situation, though unpalatable, is something we could all handle if we had to.
In fact I know some people who are doing exactly that....living in a rented unit and living on the aged pension. Obviously they don't have money to burn, but nevertheless they enjoy simple pleasure like social clubs, bowls, fishing and bushwalking, visits to national parks etc. Many of life's true pleasures are free.

We're fortunate to live in a country whose welfare system ensures that nobody has to be a beggar on the streets, as happens in some countries when people have no job and no money and no relatives to look after them.

Unfortunately I don't have the solution to your problems. But the knowledge that you can deal with the worst case scenario, if it eventuates, will hopefully give you some comfort and peace of mind.
 
bunyip said:
"... When you're in a situation that's troubling you, think of the worst case scenario that could arise from your situation. Then ask yourself if you can handle that scenario if it eventuates. For most people, the answer is yes. ..."

For the whole of my adult life I have asked myself this question when in need or troubled. I believe it is the wisest way to approach any problem one is confronted with.

Well said.
Click to expand...
 
Bunyip I can't imagine anything worse than living in rented accommodation on the old age pension. Guess I'd like a better quality of life than that but I do enjoy the simple pleasures of life not necessarily the ones which cost. Will take your suggestion on board though thanks for your input.
 

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