Storm Financial Group

Garpal Gumnut said:

Sorry Frank for butting in to this stimulating conversation of the deaf.

"Storm Airways" was characterised by having 90% of the passengers who turned up at the airport, **** scared to fly with them, and taking a bus.

gg

Click to expand...

Frank Ainslie said:

I’ll spell it out for you and Bunnyip because you both seem a little slow on the uptake.

Click to expand...

LOL!!
Yes Frank, that’s me – a little slow on the uptake alright! As is SJG, as are the 80% of prospective Storm clients who walked away after reviewing the strategy, as are all the other people like me who didn’t go near Storm in the first place because we have the knowledge and ability to look after our own investments.

Yep, it’s a real drawback being a bit slow on the uptake. I’d give my right arm to be quick on the uptake like you are. Think of all the fun I missed out on by not being mentally switched on like you. I mean, if I was somewhat quicker-witted like you obviously are, then I could have waded into the Storm strategy like just you did, secure in the knowledge that I was investing safely by mortgaging my home, borrowing a large amount of money to combine with my life savings, and sinking the whole lot into the stock market.
Then doubling my portfolio by using an aggressive double gearing strategy, again safe in the knowledge that this was all low-risk, conservative stuff because Storm said so.

What a shame I don’t live beside you, Frank. I mean, I could come over to your place a couple of times a weeks and share a beer with you, learn how to be smart and switched on like you are.
Who knows, if I got on really friendly terms with you then you might even teach me how to be astute and circumspect!

Merry Christmas to you Frank. And please keep up the entertaining posts....the world needs more switched-on people like you!

Garpal Gumnut said:

Sorry Frank for butting in to this stimulating conversation of the deaf.

"Storm Airways" was characterised by having 90% of the passengers who turned up at the airport, **** scared to fly with them, and taking a bus.

gg

Click to expand...

Hi GG,

Sounds good but passengers can only be scared to fly with any airline if they have been warned in advance. In this case there were no media articles or insiders spilling the beans to the general public. Thousands signed up with Storm in good faith in much the same way that thousands flew with S/A accepting that their aircraft were safe because the industry and more importantly the Civil Aviation Board had given S/A's aircraft an airworthiness certificate or blank endorsement. Incidentally, by ignoring the prior warnings, weren't the Civil Aviation Board just as liable in this story? Aren't ASIC just as liable in the case of Storm?

Remember what I said earlier about the law and the purchaser of a service not being liable for a risk unless that risk is pointed out before he or she accept the service, and he or she is prepared to take that risk! Further, Storm did not have the safe guards in place to deal with risks despite the fact that it claimed otherwise, and it ignored its clients' wishes that they wanted "low risk" plans with a steady growth. Stormies' rights were immediately violated when Storm misrepresented its services on both counts.

If you climb aboard any aircraft after being warned it could crash, then you have no case. If you have no reason to doubt the safety of the aircraft you have been asked to fly in, then you do have a case. It's as simple as that! In relation to Cassimatis, I think the Courts will see it this way and he will go down. The unfortunate thing for all Stormies is that Storm Financial is not still in existence because you would then have seen a plethora of lawsuits against that firm. Mine would have been among the first.

Here's a challenge for all those that think we Stormies should share part of the blame.

Rather than we Stormies always making a case, I think it's about time those that are in the other corner state their case relating it to those in the Dock; namely Storm and the Banks. How would you defend them? When so doing, you must address the issue of "deceptive conduct" and base your defence on the consumer laws that existed at the time and common law principles. You see, if you cannot defend them or mitigate their parts in all this, you cannot apportion any blame to us!

For once let us be the judges! Let's see you make a case that can stand up in consumer law or common law. If you can make a reasonable case, we will listen. If not, please move on because we Stormies have no case to answer. Who among you has the guts to do so? Don't worry! We 'Stormies' will tell you whether you can now pass our test!

It's always a little different when the shoe is on the other foot, isn't it?

Frank Ainslie said:

Hi GG,

Sounds good but passengers can only be scared to fly with any airline if they have been warned in advance.

Click to expand...

I like the idea of Storm Airlines Frank. You have a vivid imagination, which has been shown throughout your posts. No wonder you are a published author! Fantasy books I am guessing?

Let me present another scenario involving Storm Airlines to you. I reckon this one probably gets to the issue you are trying to address.

Lets just say Frank that passengers travelling on Storm Airlines go to the airport and see that the Storm Airlines jet has a wing missing and looks in disrepair, amongst other obvious problems. You don't have to be a rocket surgeon to see that tavelling on that plane is highly risky. Highly risky.

The Storm Airlines representative at the terminal tells the passengers "Look don't worry about what you see out there, there are no risks in travelling on this plane at all. It may seem risky, but trust me, I am a Certified Flight Planner (CFP), I am a member of the Federal Pilots Association (FPA) and we are regulated by the Australian Security and Intelligence Commision (ASIC). Our pilot can overcome all of the potential risks and navigate you to your destination safely. He has this amazing Ignite navigation system on board, which has never let us down yet. "

He then goes on to tell you "Not only that, but by flying with us we will take you to places you have never dreamt of, you will be the envy of all your friends. You will enjoy a life that you never imagined was possible.

This plane is completely safe; ignore what your eyes are telling you about our plane. Trust me, I am a CFP."

Now most people Frank, would consider the obvious risks, walk away and travel with a competitor who whilst it may not offer the same destinations as Storm Airlines, would at least get them to where they need to go with much less risk. Most people would do this. If I had to guess, at least 8 out of every 10 people would.

I am guessing Frank you would be in the 20% of travellers who would be sucked in by the slick sales pitch by the Storm Airlines representative, and with the dreams of exotic locations swirling around in your head, would decide that the obvious, no glaringly obvious risks of travelling with them are worth it to get the huge rewards on offer.

And then when the plane crashes, you will climb out of the wreckage and say to whoever is around to listen "but they didn't tell me it was risky, so I didn't think it was".

With all this discussion about the 80/20 split of people people walking away and an implied reference to the Pareto principal, I was flipping through my Spiraxs in an attempt to source the reference as to what was actually stated. I remember EC discussing the above at the Parliamentary Joint Committee, so I checked Hansard for clarification of what was stated.

This is what EC actually stated on 3/9/09 in his response to questioning from the Chairman in relation to advice.

"However, we were quite a unique model, and the way we approached it was rather than be everything to all people, we went the other way and we said,
‘This is what we do. We are specialists in leveraging,’ and if 100 people walked through the door, statistically. 25 or one in four would proceed with our plans and three out of four would not. So we did specialise; we did not do everything for everybody."

And later this was stated:

"What I said was we went the other way and we presented our offerings and educated clients and three out of four did not participate and one in four did. It was about attracting those people who wanted to go that way as opposed to saying, ‘We have a shelf full of everything that you may want.’ "

I just felt clarity on the issue would be beneficial as to what was actually stated and from where it was sourced. I wonder what statical and measuring methods were used by Storm to record and arrive at the stated 25:75 acceptance ratio of their strategy.

Solly said:

I wonder what statical and measuring methods were used by Storm to record and arrive at the stated 25:75 acceptance ratio of their strategy.

Click to expand...

Hi Solly,

Every time I went to a Storm educational session I had to sign in. Obviously individual visits were recorded in their appointment books. From there they were probably able to develop a very clear understanding of what their clients did.

cheers
Maccka

maccka said:

Hi Solly,

Every time I went to a Storm educational session I had to sign in. Obviously individual visits were recorded in their appointment books. From there they were probably able to develop a very clear understanding of what their clients did.

Click to expand...

A clear understanding of "what their clients did"? I have no idea what you mean here.

Would you be kind enough to clarify?

maccka said:

Hi Solly,

Every time I went to a Storm educational session I had to sign in. Obviously individual visits were recorded in their appointment books. From there they were probably able to develop a very clear understanding of what their clients did.

cheers
Maccka

Click to expand...

Thanks Maccka,
I was wondering if that used any propriety Customer Relationship Management software to track and record 'sales' and opportunities.

Julia said:

A clear understanding of "what their clients did"? I have no idea what you mean here.

Would you be kind enough to clarify?

Click to expand...

They - Storm.
Clients - people who went to them for advice.
Did - whether clients went beyond just asking for advice or not.

It's pretty simple Julia, people came in the doors either for individual appointments or for education seminars. It's a fairly simple thing to count the number of people who walked through the doors and then count the percentage of those that took up their advice.

cheers
Maccka

Solly said:

With all this discussion about the 80/20 split of people people walking away and an implied reference to the Pareto principal, I was flipping through my Spiraxs in an attempt to source the reference as to what was actually stated. I remember EC discussing the above at the Parliamentary Joint Committee, so I checked Hansard for clarification of what was stated.

This is what EC actually stated on 3/9/09 in his response to questioning from the Chairman in relation to advice.

"However, we were quite a unique model, and the way we approached it was rather than be everything to all people, we went the other way and we said,
‘This is what we do. We are specialists in leveraging,’ and if 100 people walked through the door, statistically. 25 or one in four would proceed with our plans and three out of four would not. So we did specialise; we did not do everything for everybody."

And later this was stated:

"What I said was we went the other way and we presented our offerings and educated clients and three out of four did not participate and one in four did. It was about attracting those people who wanted to go that way as opposed to saying, ‘We have a shelf full of everything that you may want.’ "

I just felt clarity on the issue would be beneficial as to what was actually stated and from where it was sourced. I wonder what statical and measuring methods were used by Storm to record and arrive at the stated 25:75 acceptance ratio of their strategy.

Click to expand...

Solly,

I seem to recall another Storm Adviser using the 2 out of 10 acceptance ratio. Perhaps David McCulloch or Gus Dalle Cort or Stuart Drummond. Do you have any of their statements in your Spiraxs? It is a figure that stuck with me for some reason.

Still either way whether its 2 out of 10 or 2.5 out of 10 is still very much in favor of those who didn't like what they saw and walked away.

Solly said:

Thanks Maccka,
I was wondering if that used any propriety Customer Relationship Management software to track and record sales and opportunities.

Click to expand...

I believe they did Solly but I don't know that definitively. Even if they didn't have specific commercial software, it isn't hard to customise a spreadsheet or database to track the numbers.

cheers
Maccka

Some transcript details from the Cairns hearing where Gus Dalle Court was interviewed.

From Hansard - http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/joint/commttee/J12222.pdf
Page CFS 2

"CHAIRMAN””That is fine. Would you describe your role as a managing director of Storm and tell us how involved you were with the day-to-day operations of Storm?

Mr Dalle Cort””We had a dozen staff in Cairns, including me. We met existing clients and new clients, and we had a process. We tracked everything at Storm, and the process for a client to do business with Storm Financial took, on average, 180 days. There are not too many financial institutions out there that take 180 days to do business with a client.

Senator WILLIAMS””What do you mean by ‘doing business’?

Mr Dalle Cort””It took 180 days from the time the client came in to say hello to completing the business or entering the market.

Senator WILLIAMS””That was the average?

Mr Dalle Cort””Yes. Some took less time and some took more. That process entitled the client to a number of sessions. There would be half-a-dozen sessions with a client before they would even attempt to do business with us. This involved finding out not only their personal position but also their financial position and right through to having a number of banks quote on the business, whether it was margin lending or equity lending. The appropriate bank would be chosen, based on that bank’s product."

from page CFS 14

"Mr Dalle Cort””We had educational sessions in our office on a fortnightly basis. We held bigger educational sessions at the Hilton and at Cazalys on a number of occasions, but they were mainly in our office.

Senator McLUCAS””I know the chairman asked this question, but can you give me an understanding of what happened at those events?

Mr Dalle Cort””We would show the clients the difference between shares, cash and property. We would show them volatility and educate them on how different markets react and give them a broad based information session””only an information session. No advice was given on these evenings, just pure information. Should clients decide to come back and have a chat to us, they did that on an individual basis and we would explore their individual circumstances after that.

Senator McLUCAS””So, mostly, the educational event would be the first point of contact?

Mr Dalle Cort””Correct.

Senator McLUCAS””Then you go to a process of doing an assessment of the person’s circumstances. How long did that take?

Mr Dalle Cort””On average, 180 days.

Senator McLUCAS””Sitting down with the client?

Mr Dalle Cort””It depends. When a client wanted to come back and have a chat we would have a profile and would certainly obtain all their financial data.

Senator McLUCAS””I am not talking about the average length of time. How many hours would you sit with a client to do an assessment of their financial situation?

Mr Dalle Cort””From start to finish, a client would spend a minimum of 10 hours with us.

Senator McLUCAS””To do their financial assessment? To do that first””

Mr Dalle Cort””That little step there?

Senator McLUCAS””Ten hours?"

...

from page CFS 15
"Mr Dalle Cort””No, not 10 hours for that individual component. It would be a minimum of an hour, and a lot of the time the client would have to go away and come back with lots of data, and we would expand on that.

Senator McLUCAS””So on average you would spend an hour to assess””

Mr Dalle Cort””A minimum of an hour.

Senator McLUCAS””And then how long would it take to develop the statement of advice that you are required to provide?

Mr Dalle Cort””If you are trying to break up each individual component, there are in excess of 20 hours””20 hours would be an absolute minimum that we would spend on any individual client, both in front of or behind the scenes.

Senator McLUCAS””You also say that you were selling products that were products you were buying off the shelf””

Mr Dalle Cort””Correct.

Senator McLUCAS””and they required, I think in all cases, either equity lending or margin lending. Were there any types of products that you recommended to””

Mr Dalle Cort””Superannuation products right across the board. They did not all require equity lending or margin lending. A number of our clients just had cash invested into the index trust without gearing attached to it.

Senator McLUCAS””Can you give me an understanding of the proportion of your clients who did not require margin lending in order to participate?

Mr Dalle Cort””Only about 30 per cent of our clients were actually investment clients. So 25 per cent or 28 per cent of clients."

cheers
Maccka

Maccka from the foregoing evidence it would appear that the poor Storm clients fell amongst muppets.

The Financial Planners dealing with them were more like day one check out chicks than financially adept professionals, inspecting the trolley of what the clients purchased and then executing and billing for their purchases.

gg

SJG1974 said:

Solly,

I seem to recall another Storm Adviser using the 2 out of 10 acceptance ratio. Perhaps David McCulloch or Gus Dalle Cort or Stuart Drummond. Do you have any of their statements in your Spiraxs? It is a figure that stuck with me for some reason.

Still either way whether its 2 out of 10 or 2.5 out of 10 is still very much in favor of those who didn't like what they saw and walked away.

Click to expand...

SJG1974,
I am wondering how the raw data was soured to substantiate these figures. I suppose it is because I come from a background where it is crucial to verify, check, recheck and in some cases peer review facts, statements and observations. I have often seen 'anecdotal facts' far removed from actuals. I don't have any other records regarding the 80/20 claim but I will quiz my associates to see if any further reference can be sourced.

David McCulloch's take on things:

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/corporations_ctte/fps/report/c03.htm

3.13 Mr David McCulloch, long-time group accountant for Storm Financial, summarised the business model as follows:

... using debt, mortgaging the home, using margin lending and using only share market investments.[6]

3.14 All Storm advisers operated under direction from Storm's headquarters in Townsville. As Mr Gus Dalle Cort, director of Storm Financial (Nine) in Cairns, explained to the committee:

Everything was directed back to the one system at Storm, from the way we developed our statements of advice to the process of quoting to banks. Everything was sent back to Storm central and farmed out from there. Our planning was done back-office, but our input from talking to a client and certainly a lot of our file notes were all sent to the one point.[7]

3.15 This description was corroborated by Mr McCulloch:

No advisers were permitted to undertake their own financial planning modelling. Rather, their role was to explain the Storm financial planning model to clients who were interested and to ensure that clients who were not comfortable with this did not become a client. All modelling of plans were undertaken by Storm's compliance or cash flow modelling cell, headed up by Julie Cassimatis.

This highlighted bit obviously seems at odds with those who are saying they didn't understand the risks they were taking when they signed on. I guess the truth lies somewhere between McCulloch's version and the version of "I had no idea of the risks involved"....

Solly said:

With all this discussion about the 80/20 split of people people walking away and an implied reference to the Pareto principal, I was flipping through my Spiraxs in an attempt to source the reference as to what was actually stated. I remember EC discussing the above at the Parliamentary Joint Committee, so I checked Hansard for clarification of what was stated.

This is what EC actually stated on 3/9/09 in his response to questioning from the Chairman in relation to advice.

"However, we were quite a unique model, and the way we approached it was rather than be everything to all people, we went the other way and we said,
‘This is what we do. We are specialists in leveraging,’ and if 100 people walked through the door, statistically. 25 or one in four would proceed with our plans and three out of four would not. So we did specialise; we did not do everything for everybody."

And later this was stated:

"What I said was we went the other way and we presented our offerings and educated clients and three out of four did not participate and one in four did. It was about attracting those people who wanted to go that way as opposed to saying, ‘We have a shelf full of everything that you may want.’ "

I just felt clarity on the issue would be beneficial as to what was actually stated and from where it was sourced. I wonder what statical and measuring methods were used by Storm to record and arrive at the stated 25:75 acceptance ratio of their strategy.

Click to expand...

Hi Solly,

The question really isn't about how many accepted Storm's advice and how many didn't but rather what's the norm? How many people walk away after being given financial advice and how many accept such? What's the industry standard? Did more people walk away from Storm than is normally the case or is this just another issue that has been distorted?

Frank Ainslie said:

Hi Solly,

The question really isn't about how many accepted Storm's advice and how many didn't but rather what's the norm? How many people walk away after being given financial advice and how many accept such? What's the industry standard? Did more people walk away from Storm than is normally the case or is this just another issue that has been distorted?

Click to expand...

That is a very good point Frank.

gg

Frank Ainslie said:

Hi GG,

Sounds good but passengers can only be scared to fly with any airline if they have been warned in advance.

Click to expand...

80% of prospective Storm passengers were scared to fly with Storm Airways. Nobody warned them in advance – their warning bells sounded after they looked into the strategy and had the common sense to recognize the extreme danger in mortgaging their homes and borrowing vast sums of money via margin loans to combine with their life savings, and then sinking the whole lot into the stock market.

If someone was considering handing over 145 grand for his Storm Airways ticket like you did, Frank, he or she would hopefully be prudent enough to have a close look at the Storm aircraft to make sure there were no cracks in the windscreen or loose rivets on the wings or tyres that were worn down to the fabric.
And if the captain and co-pilot of the aircraft were sloppy looking characters in need of a shave and wearing faded denim jeans, as was the captain of Storm Financial, then that would be further reason for concern.

Is it just me or should it not be Storm Travel Agents - not airlines.

Pay the highest airfares around but get the discount airline when you get to the airport. With no food or movie.

If you book your holiday through Storm Travel and they choose to put you on "NoMaintenance Air" and you get to the airport and still get on the plane and it crashes, are you blaming the travel agent? the airline (bit hard to sue the market)? Or the poor bastard to built and sold the plane which works in normal circumstances?

I will throw out a few questions that no stormies will answer I would say.

Gus Dallecort says average 6mths to "educate" people so they were comfortable with the process and "fit" the singular advice being offered.

Question 1: Anyone willing to say how long from start to finish before they first invested

Question 2: At what point in the process for those "conservative" investors did they start to feel comfortable with the idea of investing into shares

Question 3: When did they then feel comfortable taking on the extra share exposure using the loans

Question 4: What if any discussions were had about risk in share investing

Question 5: What was it you think you said / wrote down on a feedback form that led Storm to believe that you were a client that "fit". If they were doing the filtering before even calling clients back in, why did you get a call?

I think those questions might bring some more QUALITY information to the forum rather than just the ranting about breach of contract or what ASIC believe.

Putting the ‘Stormies’ legal position thing in perspective!

I often wonder how many Stormies are actually members of this forum? I also wonder if at times they, like me, scratch their heads at some of the postings? This extract for instance:

“Lets just say Frank that passengers travelling on Storm Airlines go to the airport and see that the Storm Airlines jet has a wing missing and looks in disrepair, amongst other obvious problems. You don't have to be a rocket surgeon to see that travelling on that plane is highly risky. Highly risky.”

As I have stated a number of times, in order for anyone to accept risk they must be pre-warned that a risk exists and accept such. That’s part of consumer law but he and others consistently chooses to ignore this. We can only hope that the Banks’ lawyers have the same mindset because it will be a “no contest” in our favour.

Some also have their noses out of joint because I refuse to admit that Helen and I were responsible in any way for what happened to us in signing up with Storm. They ignore the fact that our Storm adviser has been charged by ASIC with:

* making false and misleading statements in breach of s1041E of the Corporations Act 2001,
* engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct under s1041H of the Corporations Act 2001,
* promoting the Storm strategy without considering the suitability of the strategy for individual clients,
* providing Statements of Advice and Statements of Additional Advice containing misleading and deceptive information in order to induce them to invest using the Storm strategy, and
* didn’t have an understanding of the nature and risks of financial products recommended on the basis of the Storm strategy.

Note how many times the words, ‘misleading’ and ‘deceptive’ appear above.

Yet, they want us now to conveniently forget these transgressions because it doesn’t suit them to consider such. They also want us to forget that Sections 1041E and 1041H of the Corporations Act 2001 were breached.

I’ve no doubt that ASIC will include these allegations in its assertions that “the Cassimatises breached their duty as directors by causing and permitting Storm to be exposed to legal liability arising from the implementation of a financial services business model (Storm Model) which involved providing commoditised financial advice to investors that failed to take into account the personal circumstances of individual investors.”

The most worrying thing for any would be investors looking in must be these detractors' apparent lack of knowledge in relation to consumer laws clearly demonstrated by their obdurate attitudes when confronted with the facts - and they claim to work in the financial advisory industry??? Would you trust such individuals with your futures if they have no knowledge of the sections of the Corporations Act that relate to financial advice. This is evident by their refusal to consider the evidence to hand and their single-minded fixation with the mindset of the people that invested using the services of Storm financial.

In the postings I have made on this forum in the last week or so I have outlined the breaches in consumer laws that are at the heart of this matter. Yet, no one has responded refuting my contentions. Instead, they continue to side-step these legal arguments and attempt to cloud the issues by returning to the old mantra, “You knew what you were getting into!”

What does that tell you? It tells me that they simply want to ignore the facts either because they do not know the law or they choose to ignore such. Either way, they are a worry!

I will repeat my challenge to them – one they have so far chosen to ignore!

Based on consumer and commercial law principles, not your own subjective views, on what basis do you maintain that the ‘Stormies’ are partly responsible? In your response, you will need to back this up with legal argument. You will also need to mitigate the case we and ASIC have against Storm and the Banks because only by so doing can you place us alongside them. You will also have to deal with misleading and deceptive conduct which is central to our case.

I think we Stormies can take it as read that if those in the other camp cannot make a case for themselves, then we should treat anything else they have to say on Storm and the Banks as meaningless humbug.

HERE”S YOUR CHANCE TO PROVE ME WRONG!

Remember that we Stormies are not in the dock and you have to state your reasons why we should be based on the Law, not on supposition or your own personal opinions but rather on the facts. In other words, prove to me that you know what you are talking about!

This challenge also goes out to any member on this forum that feels that he can defend Storm or the Banks’ position. The financial advisory sector is on trial here as well as Storm and the Banks, so any financial advisory firm or individual is welcome to try and place us Stormies alongside Storm and the Banks in terms of culpability.

However, YOU MUST STICK WITH THE FACTS And RESPOND WITH LEGAL PRINCIPLES. I have done so in stating our case and I expect nothing less from any of you.

If no one is prepared to accept my challenge, I (and I hope, other Stormies) will assume that you and your supporters cannot make a case! Everything you have stated so far has no bearing on the legalities of our case. Establish a case or get out of the kitchen!