Storm Financial Group

[Monario]

Love it..... Just Keeps getting better...

Storm, you make me laugh, you managed my portfolio into the ground, pointed the finger at me, even after I asked to sell, before All equity was totaly lost. And left me out to dry...

Now it would appear obvious that Storm Financial, are not only unable to provide adequate advice or management to clients, but cannot even manage their own finances..

Finacial Advisors My Ar*e......

A happy storm client...:

 

[cuttlefish]

I was a Storm client and know 100s of clients all over the country.
Do not believe all you read in the papers but you will see them folding this week and that will be true!
I am not happy that all the clients I know had/have huge margin loans in addition to a loan 80% usually on the house value. It is not just a few hundred but thousands.
There are two class actions against them already started.
Townsville Bulletin is advertisting lots of Storm client houses on or near Castle Hill for sale and a real estate agent told me 1000s of houses of Storm clients will be in the market now or soon.
Their model was doomed- see this interesting article:
http://www.acleardirection.com.au/storm_s_doomed_model___eureka_report_article
They have been in business only 14 years and not more - they had to admit it in the court documents with Cwth.
People went to them for financial advice and were sold a pack of lies.
All were told not to get out of the market as their money was safe. Those who tried to get out and did had a mighty battle to do so. I know from experience.

Cheers for the comments Smiley - interesting to hear from someone's first hand experience.

There seems to be a common theme of people trying to either get information about their margin position and not being given it, or trying to close out their position but not being able to do so.


Do you mean thousands of houses across Australia, or thousands in Townsville? If thats in Townsville alone, thats a LOT of houses for a relatively small property market.

 

[Nick Radge]

Apparently there is a report on ABC 's 7.30 Report tonight on it all.

 

[Smiley]

Well the lawyers are now wondering if Storm has financial planning insurance and enough to cover claims so that clients are not left totally destitute.
I meant across Oz there would be many houses for sale not a thousand in Townsville.
I will not lose my home but have a mortgage and margin loan I could do without.
All this I can service but many of my friends/acquaintances owe the banks hundreds of thousands and will lose their homes.
I do not know how Storm is going to help clients if they won't talk to them.
They have advertised that there are support groups for Storm clients but I do not know anyone in one, unless they are talking about my friends who are supporting each other as they go to Slater and Gordon or Connolly and Suthers (litigation lawyers).

 

[Monario]

I wonder what the numbers trully are, asic say only 200.... I know personally of 10 people/families affected, friends of mine, and have read about 20 articles of others, surely that must mean the numbers out there we dont know about must be much more..

I mean, if its just these people, bugger me we must have been an unlucky group of friends....

Would anyone be interested in starting a list? no need for names, just initials... I am sure the law firms would be interested to get more accurate numbers...

 

[Solly]

I had a feeling it would all come to this....
It's now a little clearer...

On 31 Dec CBA issued a notice on Storm for full repayment of its corporate debt.

On Jan 9 Storm appointed Worrells Solvency & Forensic Accountants as administrator.

Storm will now work with the administrators to formulate a proposal to assist clients in the future.

CBA is committed to work with the administrator.

:horse:

 

[Julia]

Apparently there is a report on ABC 's 7.30 Report tonight on it all.

Nothing tonight, Nick. Perhaps tomorrow.
It would be good to see an interview with Storm's principals.

 

[Julia]

I had a feeling it would all come to this....
It's now a little clearer...

On 31 Dec CBA issued a notice on Storm for full repayment of its corporate debt.

On Jan 9 Storm appointed Worrells Solvency & Forensic Accountants as administrator.

Storm will now work with the administrators to formulate a proposal to assist clients in the future.

CBA is committed to work with the administrator.

:horse:

I've had past experience with Worrells. If there's any money left, their drawn out investigations and huge charges will soon eat it up. If you're involved, prepare to wait for years for an outcome.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

I wonder what the numbers trully are, asic say only 200.... I know personally of 10 people/families affected, friends of mine, and have read about 20 articles of others, surely that must mean the numbers out there we dont know about must be much more..

I mean, if its just these people, bugger me we must have been an unlucky group of friends....

Would anyone be interested in starting a list? no need for names, just initials... I am sure the law firms would be interested to get more accurate numbers...

Shame mate, makes many people shy away from outing themselves when they've been taken to the cleaners.

Everyone in Townsville knows many who have been burnt.

It can't be just 200, I can guarantee.

Again I say.

Before the next one occurs.

If you find

Fountains in the Lobby

Gold in the Loo.

Then run as fast as you can away.

gg

 

[-Bevo-]

I wonder what the numbers trully are, asic say only 200.... I know personally of 10 people/families affected, friends of mine, and have read about 20 articles of others, surely that must mean the numbers out there we dont know about must be much more..

I mean, if its just these people, bugger me we must have been an unlucky group of friends....

Would anyone be interested in starting a list? no need for names, just initials... I am sure the law firms would be interested to get more accurate numbers...

I think that number 200 (ASIC website said 300 last time I looked) only relates to the people who still have margin owing, I suspect there's probably many more who have taken significant loss or who have accounts with close to zero left.

 

[BL82]

I think that number 200 (ASIC website said 300 last time I looked) only relates to the people who still have margin owing, I suspect there's probably many more who have taken significant loss or who have accounts with close to zero left.

I have a feeling the number is a lot higher than both those estimates, every person i've heard of in storm has been left with a huge margin loan against their house which in some cases had been paid off for years.

A lot of customers got to know each other on the annual holidays(which was 100% paid for by the investors, not storm), so you can imagine the emails flying around between customers now... it really is heartbreaking stuff

 

[Temjin]

Sorry, but I'm not sure if anybody mentioned this yet.

Whatever it is, for many people it hasn't worked. Why did it fail?

Very simple. The Australian sharemarket encountered a black swan event.

OMFG!!! Such an easy way out! Black swan event! Oh yeah, as if they never expected one. Since they mentioned the term "black swan", they would have read and understood Nassim's teachings. But they still fail to protect themselves from such "black swan" events by maximising leverage and worked on the assumption that the stock market will not face a 40-50%+ drop.

Epic failure..

 

[Monario]

Shame mate, makes many people shy away from outing themselves when they've been taken to the cleaners.

Everyone in Townsville knows many who have been burnt.

It can't be just 200, I can guarantee.

Again I say.

Before the next one occurs.

If you find

Fountains in the Lobby

Gold in the Loo.

Then run as fast as you can away.

gg

I drove past the Cassimatis estate in brisbane a short while ago... Painted on the lawn was a huge piece of the male anatomy sprouting dollar signs out of it, there were also the typical LARGE Mediterranean statue type fountains that appeared to be pissing gold? I dont know why I never took the hint...

I may or may not have dreamt this..... Hmmmm

 

[Monario]

I heard there are a few advisors from storm looking for work... As it appears the cassimatis's have a cork in it, I would be more then happy to be a reference for any of you looking for work...

 

[chrisgee]

What I want to know is how come there were not processes in place to stop the carnage that developed.

I'm not impacted but seeing what my friends are going through is truely heart breaking. I don't give a flying fark about 'black swans', finger pointing between Storm & CBA, the end result I see is two of my friends who are just ordinary people who put their complete trust in a mob that they thought would give them a comfortable retirement. They don't want a flashy house, cars, overseas hols etc.


To me as an outsider, no matter what anybody says my friends where involved with a mob who could not give them the timely, correct advice to stop them from becoming financially wrecked when the market conditions turned.

Put it simply the strategy they were given was flawed.
Their mistake was to have an blind, undenying belief in this mob.

Is there any possibility of them getting anything back ?
I believe they have a snowflakes chance in hell.

The whole thing makes me feel sick....

 

[Smiley]

Everyone I know in Storm has margin loans - this was their whole approach!

Take out an 80% mortgage on your house and keep having the house revalued over the years to take out more equity. Then get a margin loan which you increase a few times a year.

Thousands of their clients are in this situation. So typically, a person on a medium income or retired would have a mortgage on the family home - e.g. $320,000 on a home valued at $400,000 and then another million+ margin loan.

If someone could not pay the 9.19% interest on that margin loan they were encouraged not to use equity from the market but to borrow more from the margin lender. So there would be an additonal loan of $90,000 on that million dollar margin loan at the end of June - interest paid ahead for the financial year.

Cassimatis called this a conservative approach in the mewspapers last week.

They especially liked retirees or those nearing retirment - could extract their super funds. They had clients put all of their super payout into the market.

For many people who have worked all their lives, this is a sad position. So now many Storm clients (even one couple I know who have been with Emmanuel over 20 years) have applied for the aged pension as they have literally nothing (except a mortgage on their home).

 

[Judd]

What I want to know is how come there were not processes in place to stop the carnage that developed.

This is the same question asked when things go down the toilet: Westpoint, Fincorp, ACR, City Pacific.

I've heard that people in Geelong, Victoria are affected by Storm Financial - and that town has already had its own fiasco with a home grown promoter. It has probably hit people in Rockhampton and various other places.

Every single downturn brings out this stuff. Credit Corporation in the 1960's, Estate Mortgage, Pyramid Building Society (Hello Geelong - what is it with that place?), Adsteam, Bond Corp, Qunitex, Babcock and Brown, Allco, Centro,

And what do have each and every one of these things have in common. Debt, debt and more debt a a lot of the time debt associated with property.

So in answer to your question, sadly, there is no answer as the matter relies on honesty and integrity.

And in the next boom, whenever that will be, history will be forgotten and the same thing will happen over again.

I've lost cold hard cash and it hurts but these poor blighters .......... destitution. Makes me sick to think that any person could encourage retirees to take such a high risk strategy. Where were the industry representatives to try and control this? Oh, I know, they wear the same clothing as the RE industry - only in it for their members and not the clients who are only there for extraction of their money.

 

[sqwark7600]

According to InvestorDaily ASIC's investigation found about 3,000 of Storm's clients had entered into a margin loan for market-linked investments and over 450 clients owed their margin lender more than the value of their portfolios, equating to about $30 million.

See: http://www.investordaily.com.au/5550.htm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

Storm are now reported to be in voluntary liquidation which indicates their business plan went down with their customers. Next come the employee and creditor actions.
A class action now has the benefit of a third party (the administrators) being in charge of Storm's books. I doubt whether there are any residual funds but there will certainly be heaps of information on the structure of the operation. Also there are a few of big names involved in this tragedy. If I am not mistaken they will already have made provisions if there is a hint of regulatory misconduct in the connection. So there is a liklihood of recovery of funds if the Storm operation was legally flawed, the class action is not fragmented and the legal team is any good.
My opinion; your call.
:1zhelp:

 

[cuttlefish]

What I want to know is how come there were not processes in place to stop the carnage that developed.

I'm not impacted but seeing what my friends are going through is truely heart breaking. I don't give a flying fark about 'black swans', finger pointing between Storm & CBA, the end result I see is two of my friends who are just ordinary people who put their complete trust in a mob that they thought would give them a comfortable retirement. They don't want a flashy house, cars, overseas hols etc.


To me as an outsider, no matter what anybody says my friends where involved with a mob who could not give them the timely, correct advice to stop them from becoming financially wrecked when the market conditions turned.

Put it simply the strategy they were given was flawed.
Their mistake was to have an blind, undenying belief in this mob.

Is there any possibility of them getting anything back ?
I believe they have a snowflakes chance in hell.

The whole thing makes me feel sick....

What I want to know is how someone can get to retirement age, and have witnessed numerous downturns, corporate collapses and other such stuff over the course of their lives, and STILL decide its a good idea to borrow against their home and put their money in complete and total trust with someone and not think its risky.

Borrowing against a home to buy assets is risky. They knowingly took this risk.

Its a terrible situation to be in but people need to take some responsibility for themselves being in this situation.

Unless you are telling me that Storm clients were unaware they'd mortgaged/borrowed against their home and were unaware they had margin loans.

I'm not defending Storm - there are quite a few things mentioned on here that raise big questions about how they have acted in this - and in particular if there are people that gave instructions that were ignored, or requested information that was withheld, or erroneous or fraudulent information was given, I hope they manage to get recompensed via the courts and insurance process.

But you'd have to have been born yesterday to not have been aware there were significant risks in these strategies and that there is significant risk in handing every cent you've earnt and can borrow to one individual/institution to manage in complete trust. So in my view the entire blame can't be placed on Storm - as terrible as the situation is for the people that are in it.

 

[sails]

What I want to know is how someone can get to retirement age, and have witnessed numerous downturns, corporate collapses and other such stuff over the course of their lives, and STILL decide its a good idea to borrow against their home and put their money in complete and total trust with someone and not think its risky.....

IMO, it usually comes down to slick, seductive style marketing. People want to believe they can have a wealthy retirement especially if the risks are being glossed over.

Our last visit (complimentary initial appointment!) to a financial advisor was just that - baiting while glossing over the risks. I pointed out that the Oz market was at extremely high price levels - at which she prompltly rolled out her XAO chart to demonstrate that, while markets will correct, they always go back up again. Thankfully, we declined...

If we had taken up her investment strategy (was supposed to double in 7 years), I doubt we would still have our home by now. But with some 11 years in the stockmarket it was easy to refuse the offer. However, it is highly likely there are some who really have no idea about financial matters and thought they were paying for expert advice.

Some should have known better, however, if it was highly skilled marketing at work by apparently trust worthy people with a good track record, it was probably hard to resist...