Storm Financial Group

Farencue said:

Thanks for the heads up pilots but I was thinking some might want blood at least.

Anyway, after having a quick dig around, and I dont think Solly has posted it
before, here is an excerpt from an article titled "Storm Chasers" at www.professionalplanners.com.au
The O'Brien referred to is Noel O'Brien, co chairman of SICAG. The bolding is mine.

"O’Brien is angry about the portrayal of Storm clients by some commentators as greedy and naïve. “All of this hullabaloo about margin lending and that we should have known better… the basis of the exposure was always that history has shown that when we have a fall in the market it will recover,” he says.

“Our buffers were sufficient to see us through that. We’re getting a lot of comment from people in hindsight saying, ‘You should have seen this’. That’s pretty amazing because no one else in the world saw it. We could sleep at night because we had these buffers built in that allowed for downturns in the market.”

He insists none of the members of SICAG are “high flyers”, despite the overseas trips that Storm arranged and some clients enjoyed, which Professional Planner understands cost $25,000 per head.

“I live a modest life, my wife and I had a modest income and we were really proud that we could call ourselves self-funded retirees, therefore avoiding becoming a burden on the taxpayers,” O’Brien says. “We were comfortable in our strategy.”O’Brien is adamant that the actions of CBA, and Colonial Margin Lending, engineered the collapse of Storm and vows to fight to protect the assets of all creditors.

“[If it wasn’t for the banks] we would still be in the game, we would all still have our houses,” he says. “We would still be scared to death about what’s happening worldwide, because it’s never happened before; it’s unprecedented and has been created by the banks which have rorted their systems, but we’d still be in there fighting. Our aim is to get total restitution; our aim is to get people’s houses back and get them back in the game.”

Perhaps that is the answer to my question: the members of SICAG believe that the banks took them out of "the game".
Of course EC and JC and the rest of the crew wouldnt have taken the stormified out of the game, they were too busy with their heads in the sand taking fees and commissions.

As I have said before, the naive "investors" were never going to be winners in what Mr O'Brien considered a game. It was always EC's game along with all of his salesmen who have been astonishingly silent.

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Farencue said:

There seem to be some who were "stormified" posting on this thread who continue to choose to not to learn from their mistakes but expect everyone else to bail them out.

Incidentally Pindibog, repayments suspended by the CBA means exactly that. Repayments suspended.
Of course the interest continuing to be charged does not seem fair to the "victims" at this stage but I would think people who consider themselves as "investors" can at least read and comprehend plain English.
I sincerely hope you have an accountant and not some other financial planner helping you out of the mess you created for yourself.

And again, the lack of any noise by those posting here, especially the "advisors", seems very very suspicious to me.
I ask again of those who consider themselves innocent victims: why has nobody said a peep about EC and JC who have scammed you blind?
All well and good to blame the banks and I am glad that the banks shoddy loan checksheet has been exposed, but the banks did not scam you outright, the people to who you signed an authority to act on your behalf did.
So why are you not seeking recourse from them?

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Judd said:

Stuart Washington's article in the SMH referred to by Quincy (Post 2033) raises a matter which no-one has explained to my satisfaction.

When I had a margin loan, it was directly with the lender. All correspondence was directly between myself and the finance provider. All buy/sell decisions were mine and once the trade was finalized T+3, the details would appear online within the margin loan. As an aside, while I never held unlisted managed funds under the margin loan some of my acquaintances did and they noticed that the unit prices for these were always by 3 or 4 days behind. Seems it was due to data feed by the fund mangers, not the margin lender. So possibly any brouhaha about delayed LVR advice based on unit pricing should be directed towards the fund manager and not the margin lender in these cases. I am assuming here that the Storm index funds were unlisted. Bit of a crock unlisted funds since listed index funds are way cheaper but then they don't pay trailing commissions to financial advisers.

Yet that does not appear to be the case in respect of Storm Financial clients. They were, apparently, required to give instructions to the financial provider who would then (supposedly) act on those instructions. So were these margin loans the type where the financial adviser acts as agent on behalf of the client and dealt directly with the financial provider? In other words, did Storm clients effectively provide a form of a power of attorney to Storm?

If that is the case, then some of the statements by CBA and other banks start to make sense in that the contact would probably require them to deal with Storm as the client and not the actual beneficiary. So when things were really going pear shaped, and the banks were not (as apparently claimed by them) receiving instructions from Storm Financial on what to do with accounts deep in margin loan, they took action to directly contact Storm client's. Way, way too late it would seem but it does start to make some sort of sense to me if my line of thought in paragraph 3 holds true.

I notice that the CEO of CBA has stated somewhere that while they will look at rectifying errors in respect of loans, the bank will not accept responsibility for the financial advice provided to Storm clients. Hmmm, maybe some houses could be safe but any funds lost due to the market kacking itself may not be.

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awg said:

I asked about this in the first few pages of this thread, but got no answer.

Where are the risk assesments carried out for each client when they first invested?

I still have my old one thru Commonwealth Premium.

It consists of a multiple choice test and various small tables, identifying risk profile and asset allocation.

They MUST be completed by all reputable financial planners

So how is it possible that people where put into super aggressive options, that did not qualify.

It is almost impossible for a retiree to qualify for aggressive option!

did they get done??

whats the story???

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Farencue said:

There seem to be some who were "stormified" posting on this thread who continue to choose to not to learn from their mistakes but expect everyone else to bail them out.

Incidentally Pindibog, repayments suspended by the CBA means exactly that. Repayments suspended.
Of course the interest continuing to be charged does not seem fair to the "victims" at this stage but I would think people who consider themselves as "investors" can at least read and comprehend plain English.
I sincerely hope you have an accountant and not some other financial planner helping you out of the mess you created for yourself.

And again, the lack of any noise by those posting here, especially the "advisors", seems very very suspicious to me.
I ask again of those who consider themselves innocent victims: why has nobody said a peep about EC and JC who have scammed you blind?
All well and good to blame the banks and I am glad that the banks shoddy loan checksheet has been exposed, but the banks did not scam you outright, the people to who you signed an authority to act on your behalf did.
So why are you not seeking recourse from them?

Click to expand...

awg said:

As no Stormer has mentioned risk management, I can only assume that none was done.

Every Financial planner I have ever seen does these.

As far as I knew, it is a condition of their licensing requirement.

Further than that though, it cuts to the absolute heart of the matter, for every party.

The planners, banks and clients are all liable

"Jointly and Severally" liable...I wonder if anyone else has had reason to contemplate that horrid clause like I have, funnily enough, in a bank finance deal..just one thing that taught me to be cautious with risk management.

Any person that allowed themselves to place 100% of their money into the share market after 4 years of above average returns takes a very high risk, that is evident at any level.

to add a margin loan would only be acceptable to the absolute highest risk taker, with an understanding that a black swan event can wipe your capital to zero in days.

To risk the house on that was absolute madness beyond my comprehension.

I went through all the permutations and posibilties myself over the years, and I can tell you I would not substantially leverage my PPOR again.

disclosure..my capital is substantially down over the last 18 months

As to the banks, as far as I can see, they definitely should be liable for something, as to how much, that would be a huge guess.

I imagine in cases where the banks approval process was improper, they will have far greater liability

Storm is at fault, but they would have nothing left

Not trying to be critical of individuals

just have a burning curiosity

hey fin planners etc, Carey, Solly, that have seen numerous ex-stormers, do you know?

any risk assesments done??

when all the details come out, this will be one long tale of lame-assed hubris and stupidity

Click to expand...

Farencue said:

Thanks for the heads up pilots but I was thinking some might want blood at least.

Anyway, after having a quick dig around, and I dont think Solly has posted it
before, here is an excerpt from an article titled "Storm Chasers" at www.professionalplanners.com.au
The O'Brien referred to is Noel O'Brien, co chairman of SICAG. The bolding is mine.

"O’Brien is angry about the portrayal of Storm clients by some commentators as greedy and naïve. “All of this hullabaloo about margin lending and that we should have known better… the basis of the exposure was always that history has shown that when we have a fall in the market it will recover,” he says.

“Our buffers were sufficient to see us through that. We’re getting a lot of comment from people in hindsight saying, ‘You should have seen this’. That’s pretty amazing because no one else in the world saw it. We could sleep at night because we had these buffers built in that allowed for downturns in the market.”

He insists none of the members of SICAG are “high flyers”, despite the overseas trips that Storm arranged and some clients enjoyed, which Professional Planner understands cost $25,000 per head.

“I live a modest life, my wife and I had a modest income and we were really proud that we could call ourselves self-funded retirees, therefore avoiding becoming a burden on the taxpayers,” O’Brien says. “We were comfortable in our strategy.”O’Brien is adamant that the actions of CBA, and Colonial Margin Lending, engineered the collapse of Storm and vows to fight to protect the assets of all creditors.

“[If it wasn’t for the banks] we would still be in the game, we would all still have our houses,” he says. “We would still be scared to death about what’s happening worldwide, because it’s never happened before; it’s unprecedented and has been created by the banks which have rorted their systems, but we’d still be in there fighting. Our aim is to get total restitution; our aim is to get people’s houses back and get them back in the game.”

Perhaps that is the answer to my question: the members of SICAG believe that the banks took them out of "the game".
Of course EC and JC and the rest of the crew wouldnt have taken the stormified out of the game, they were too busy with their heads in the sand taking fees and commissions.

As I have said before, the naive "investors" were never going to be winners in what Mr O'Brien considered a game. It was always EC's game along with all of his salesmen who have been astonishingly silent.

Click to expand...

awg said:

As no Stormer has mentioned risk management, I can only assume that none was done.

Every Financial planner I have ever seen does these.

As far as I knew, it is a condition of their licensing requirement.

Further than that though, it cuts to the absolute heart of the matter, for every party.

The planners, banks and clients are all liable

"Jointly and Severally" liable...I wonder if anyone else has had reason to contemplate that horrid clause like I have, funnily enough, in a bank finance deal..just one thing that taught me to be cautious with risk management.

Any person that allowed themselves to place 100% of their money into the share market after 4 years of above average returns takes a very high risk, that is evident at any level.

to add a margin loan would only be acceptable to the absolute highest risk taker, with an understanding that a black swan event can wipe your capital to zero in days.

To risk the house on that was absolute madness beyond my comprehension.

I went through all the permutations and posibilties myself over the years, and I can tell you I would not substantially leverage my PPOR again.

disclosure..my capital is substantially down over the last 18 months

As to the banks, as far as I can see, they definitely should be liable for something, as to how much, that would be a huge guess.

I imagine in cases where the banks approval process was improper, they will have far greater liability

Storm is at fault, but they would have nothing left

Not trying to be critical of individuals

just have a burning curiosity

hey fin planners etc, Carey, Solly, that have seen numerous ex-stormers, do you know?

any risk assesments done??

when all the details come out, this will be one long tale of lame-assed hubris and stupidity

Click to expand...

bunyip said:

Noel O'Brien sounds like he was completely out of touch with reality, and still is. Most of what he's saying is so highly inaccurate, it's laughable.
I wonder if he reads this forum. If he does, then there are a couple of things that should be pointed out to him.

Let's summarise his main points...

* Nobody in the world saw it coming.
* The basis of the exposure was always that history has shown that when we have a fall in the market it will recover.
* Our buffers were sufficient to see us through that.
* CBA, and Colonial Margin Lending, engineered the collapse of Storm.
* If it wasn’t for the banks we would still be in the game, we would all still have our houses. We would still be scared to death about what’s happening worldwide, because it’s never happened before; it’s unprecedented and has been created by the banks which have rorted their systems, but we’d still be in there fighting.

Well, Noel O'Brien, here is the reality that you can't see for yourself....

Lots of people saw the impending financial meltdown and stockmarket crash. In fact you'd have to be living under a rock in the Gobi Desert not to see it, given that dire warnings were being given daily in every media outlet for months beforehand. These warnings, incidentally, came in plenty of time for investors to take defensive action before their portfolios were decimated.
Yes Noel, the market has always recovered after past slumps, just as it will recover again this time. Only problem is that when you're geared as heavily as you Stormers were, a decent sort of a market crash will wipe you off the slate long before the next recovery comes along to bail you out of trouble.
And please don't tell us you didn't know that a decent market crash was possible, even likely. Booms are invariably followed by busts - you surely must have known that.
Had you forgotten the lessons of the 50% market crash of 1987?
Surely you'd heard of the great depression of the 1930's, and the 1929 market crash that preceded it.
Surely you were aware of various other markets slumps between 1929 and 1987.
Were you really incapable of comprehending the possibility of the same thing happening all over again?
The suggestion that this market slump and financial crisis were unprecedented is utter rubbish. It's all happened before.....you just chose to ignore the historical facts.

Now you're blaming the banks.
No mention of Cassamatis and how he duped you.
No mention of the cavalier attitude and reckless behaviour that caused you to take on massive loans relative to the value of your assets.
No mention of the fact that your plan was doomed to failure because it depended on the stockmarket continuing to go up.
No mention of the fact that no bank can afford to sit on its hands and do nothing while the security of its clients loans becomes increasingly risky as the market keeps going downhill in a big way.

Perhaps the banks are partly to blame for the trouble you find yourselves in.
But it's just downright childish of you to blame them totally, while you refuse to take any responsibility or blame for the part you played.

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Farencue said:

Thanks for the heads up pilots but I was thinking some might want blood at least.

Anyway, after having a quick dig around, and I dont think Solly has posted it
before, here is an excerpt from an article titled "Storm Chasers" at www.professionalplanners.com.au
The O'Brien referred to is Noel O'Brien, co chairman of SICAG. The bolding is mine.

"O’Brien is angry about the portrayal of Storm clients by some commentators as greedy and naïve. “All of this hullabaloo about margin lending and that we should have known better… the basis of the exposure was always that history has shown that when we have a fall in the market it will recover,” he says.

“Our buffers were sufficient to see us through that. We’re getting a lot of comment from people in hindsight saying, ‘You should have seen this’. That’s pretty amazing because no one else in the world saw it. We could sleep at night because we had these buffers built in that allowed for downturns in the market.”

He insists none of the members of SICAG are “high flyers”, despite the overseas trips that Storm arranged and some clients enjoyed, which Professional Planner understands cost $25,000 per head.

“I live a modest life, my wife and I had a modest income and we were really proud that we could call ourselves self-funded retirees, therefore avoiding becoming a burden on the taxpayers,” O’Brien says. “We were comfortable in our strategy.”O’Brien is adamant that the actions of CBA, and Colonial Margin Lending, engineered the collapse of Storm and vows to fight to protect the assets of all creditors.

“[If it wasn’t for the banks] we would still be in the game, we would all still have our houses,” he says. “We would still be scared to death about what’s happening worldwide, because it’s never happened before; it’s unprecedented and has been created by the banks which have rorted their systems, but we’d still be in there fighting. Our aim is to get total restitution; our aim is to get people’s houses back and get them back in the game.”

Perhaps that is the answer to my question: the members of SICAG believe that the banks took them out of "the game".
Of course EC and JC and the rest of the crew wouldnt have taken the stormified out of the game, they were too busy with their heads in the sand taking fees and commissions.

As I have said before, the naive "investors" were never going to be winners in what Mr O'Brien considered a game. It was always EC's game along with all of his salesmen who have been astonishingly silent.

Click to expand...

stung said:

Noel O'Brien is the father of Andrew O'Brien (a former Storm financial advisor). He is very unlikely to lay blame at the feet of Storm or their salesmen.

In my case, all the banks did wrong was loan me too much money and in combination with Storm were a bit creative with the figures to have the loan approved. It was Storm who kept ignoring our requests to sell out while we still had a fighting chance.
Instead they left it too late so that our remaining funds had to be used to service the margin loan, leaving zilch to use to put back into a rising market.

I lay blame with EC for being a crook, his salespeople for decieving their clients, the banks for reckless lending and myself for falling for it all.

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awg said:

Further than that though, it cuts to the absolute heart of the matter, for every party.

The planners, banks and clients are all liable . . .

As to the banks, as far as I can see, they definitely should be liable for something, as to how much, that would be a huge guess . . .

Storm is at fault, but they would have nothing left . . .

Not trying to be critical of individuals

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Ferret said:

I'm one who finds it quite incredible that SICAG and so many stormers are placing all their blame on the banks and none on Storm and the people behind Storm.

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chrisgee said:

. . . -so whiose fault was it??- im all for assic and the inquiryes let them roll-we just want our money and houses back- just like what we had before this mess happened. i dont care whose faullt it was-we just want to have the life we had before- our money in the bank and nobody taking our houses off us.

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