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Storm Financial Group

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Doobsy,

Again to be devils advocate and keep the entertainment high but:

1. "So far no UMIS has been proven"

True but it doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about it!

"2. Just because ASIC and some ambulance chasers have started an action does not make it so"

No! But it’s a good start though. I don’t think the ‘Worrells’ enquiry, the PJ-C findings, the millions of documents that ASIC is currently processing incriminating Storm and the Banks and the fact that the Regulator has moved against Storm and the Banks can be regarded as a whim, do you? You are certainly a hard man to please and no mistake!

As for your describing the lawyers involved as "ambulance chasers” can you tell me any lawyers that aren’t? .

Whist we are keeping the entertainment light, “What do you call a financial adviser riddled with bullets? A good start!” You see! I can be humorous too when the mood takes me!

“So until that time, cannot others on the forum be allowed to take differing positions and offer comment based on what is at hand (not what has yet to be proven).”

If you want to keep this discussion just to Storm and leave the Banks out of this, or leave the legal issues out of it for that matter, then any forum debate will become meaningless. They are all inter-connected and the big picture can only be seen if all aspects are discussed. Isolating any one aspect will merely lead to a disjointed discussion that benefits no one.

I agree, "nothing has yet been proven" other than the fact that Drummond shafted us!

“This being the case, we are down to the advice and relationship between adviser and client.”

That's been done to death. If you haven't got a handle on it by now, you never will!

"If/When we have an answer on the decision about the relationship between the banks and storm, then we can offer opinions based on that new information."

We don’t have to wait for any decision about Storm and the banks. We already know enough to discuss this relationship fully. What do you want to know? What will the Banks’ defence be for instance?

"You want us to take the position based on an assumption the banks are guilty as charged - this is not yet the case."

Does it matter? The Cassimatises have not yet been found guilty as charged either but you have been discussing Storm since the collapse. What’s the difference?

Unless this discussion can move forward to the Banks’ part in all this, the debate will remain in dry-dock. Your choice!
 

Okay GG! You can pass this on to SJG 1974 for me! I think he may have blocked me because he's feeling the pain!

It might be worth bearing in mind though that SJG 1974 has been dishing it out for some time and I have never seen any reprimand yet of his behaviour. Perhaps if he can contain himself, we can do likewise?

Hi SJG 1974! Good year that!

"You made the choices Frank that led to your demise. No one else made them for you."

Let me spell it out for you once more! Unless we made that choice "freely" we cannot be held to blame! Don't you get it still?

No matter, you have now conceded that we are not guilty in the eyes of the law so that’s fair enough.

Besides GG has asked me to be kind to you! I will endeavour to do so!

"Despite your misguided view, no one is saying you are guilty in the eyes of the law. What you are guilty of is a lack of common sense!"

Our not being guilty in the eyes of the law is all that matters to us in the end! No disrespect intended but we don't give a stuff what you personally think. (Thanks GG!) I'm sure a number of forum members share your opinion of us. It's of no importance to us because it's not going to make one iota of difference to us in the end.

What therefore are we arguing about? Whether we had any common-sense or not is irrelevant. Why therefore do you insist in repeating your opinion of us over and over. We've got the message LOUD AND CLEAR. Why you feel that you need to keep repeating it is beyond me.

Incidentally, if we are not guilty in the eyes of the law, we cannot be held to blame in any way That’s probably the reason we haven’t been charged to date. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a case where the victims have also been charged with assisting in an assault on themselves but the law is a funny thing! You just never know!
 
Yet, you are continuously offering financial advice to HQ and others and you are not a financial adviser? Have I missed something here?
Click to expand...
Yes, obviously you have missed much.
At no stage have I offered financial advice to anyone, HQ very much included.
Show me where I have or just cease making unsubstantiated allegations.

Arguing that the Storm investors were partially responsible is a personal view that has so far not been backed up by any evidence.
Click to expand...
What??? You have conceded that you risked everything by double gearing into the sharemarket, and you actually claim that this is not evidence of partial responsibility?
Give me a break!
(and DocK, before you accuse me of being 'mean', perhaps consider that I'm simply responding to yet another repetitive piece of "challenge" by FA.)

I understand that the stress of being in the position you are must be overwhelming at times, but you seem to be losing any shred of objectivity here.

Whatever, it's your life, and your battle. As previously stated, I'm just one of several interested onlookers.

Whilst you are entitled to your views, if you are to be taken seriously, you must supply some hard proof. To date neither you or anyone else has done so.
Click to expand...
Oh goodness, it gets worse. Now you are asking us to 'provide proof' of your lack of risk management when you have clearly provided this yourself.
Take gg's advice, Frank, and have a break, maybe a cold shower and a lie down.

You constantly harp on about the advice Storm gave
Click to expand...
I harp on about Storm's advice? I don't even really know what it was. I have not 'harped on' about it. I have commented today on your advice that they verbally assured you that they had systems in place to protect you. Further, that you repeatedly asked for this assurance in writing, but they failed to provide this.
You still went ahead, however, apparently not hearing any alarm bells ringing when they failed to provide the assurance in writing.
That is what you have told us. I simply remarked that Storm certainly had a plan - for themselves.

If that is 'harping on about Storm's advice' I would question your powers of interpretation and comprehension.

Yet, you conveniently ignored the various transgressions that have taken place which have infringed on the rights of those Storm investors.
Click to expand...
No, I do not. Not being fully aware of what these transgressions might be, I have not commented on them. I am not in a position to understand what the banks or anyone else may have done wrong. You have made various assertions. These, as far as I'm concerned, are not proven. I await the eventual official outcome and hope justice will prevail for all concerned.

There are numerous legal issues involved so it is not a straight-forward case by any means.
Click to expand...
This is a clearly correct statement and why those of us who are purely onlookers have only commented on what we see as basic risk management and common sense, despite your challenges to present a 'legal argument'.

I believe that this forum can best serve those that tune in because they want to know what really happened between Storm and the Banks.
Click to expand...
I suspect that most people really couldn't care less what happened. They are much too absorbed with running their own lives. There is just this small core of us who have been interested from the start and/or personally affected.

I might be wrong, but I think many people reading this thread who have no involvement might do so in order to be aware of how necessary it is to always look out for someone who will use you in order to profit themselves.
You are by no means unique in this situation, as others have been in Westpoint and various other failures.

Whatever, Julia, unless you are willing to come to grips with the legal issues, you can never come to terms with the story of Storm and the Banks. The story will always remain incomplete! It’s as simple as that!
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree more. At present I am not in a position to understand what legal transgressions may or may not have occurred. At this stage we only have your allegations.

Look, Frank, I get that you have been badly damaged, financially, materially and psychologically. I'm genuinely sorry for you and anyone else so affected. It's a totally miserable place to be in. And I also get that by repetitively assuring yourself via this forum that you had zero responsibility in the matter, the misery feels a bit less acute. I expect we have all gone through a similar psychological process in some situation or another in our lives.

I wish you well in moving on and eventually dealing with the reality. You clearly have talents in various directions.
 

More by Leonie Lamont @ brisbanetimes.com.au ,
including some grabs from the documentary, Piggy Banks.
 
Solly said:
More by Leonie Lamont @ brisbanetimes.com.au ,
including some grabs from the documentary, Piggy Banks.
Click to expand...


If I'd known that I might have become a Storm investor as the Arnage is expensive to maintain.

What a decent human being, ole Manny.

gg
 

No worries Frank. The bit that gets me is that after all of your experience in business, and your years on this earth that you can still claim you did not know that borrowing against your house, borrowing again and again and plonking it all on the sharemarket was risky...that you thought this was a conservative strategy, just because Stuart Drummond told you so. Thats what gets me. It just doesn't make any sense.

Anyways, I have said my piece (over and over and over ). I wish you and other Stormies no ill will. I wouldn't wish what you and others have gone through on my worst enemy.

You have a much bigger and more important fight on your hands than dealing with the likes of me on this forum..good luck with it all.
 
Here's some more information that strikes at the heart of Storm's motivation

These are the comments of someone that worked in Storm and is now a friendly witness.

"I was disturbed when I read comments attributed to you (I will not give the name of the person he is writing to in order to protect that person's privacy) regarding fees and commissions paid to financial advisors. It has been worrying me ever since, hence this letter. It gave me the impression that you believed that it wouldn't have helped Storm Financial clients had these proposed new laws been in place before the Storm collapse."

I would like you to know that it was precisely this issue of ‘commissions’ which caused the demise of Storm Financial and thus their clients.

The Cassimatis's great con was that Storm charged low trailing commissions and a large up-front fees.

The "commission rate" may have been a little lower than some other advisor charges, however they were proud to point out that Storm got people to invest more than twice as much as other advisors (by convincing people to mortgage their homes, plunder their superannuation etc, and put all that into the 'market' and then leveraging with Margin loans)

In effect Storm was making more than twice what other advisor groups were and receiving much more from commissions even with the supposedly lower rates.

Storm's attempt to float the company was the source of their biggest sales push. The idea was to get clients to borrow more and margin up (thus increasing LVR's) to increase their commissions so that this increase in income would show that business strategies were sound and profitable.

I believe the directors obsession of becoming billionaires so increased their greed that they took unnecessary risks with their clients security.

The next driver for business was commission based incentives for advisors and staff to enjoy Storm Holidays.

With the Global Financial Crisis marching on, the prudent thing would have been to manage their clients LVR's and convert to cash or other securities to protect them.

Storm's commission income was already being reduced by the falling value of their clients investments. The directors did not want this income to reduce further, and so kept clients in the market with dangerously high LVRs.

The further fall in the market caused hundreds of their most valuable clients to lose their entire investments. I need not mention the heartache, suffering and despair this has caused their clients.

Had the proposed laws been in place regarding trailing commissions, the Storm model would never have been so viable, and Storm would have had to change it's business models to knowing and looking after their clients.

There were Storm advisors, who's personal lifestyles depended on their ongoing commission cheques. This drove them to adhere strongly to Storm policy and recommend increases in borrowings and investments, even during the final days.

I can't imagine what it would have been like as an advisor to have to tell their clients that they had lost their entire investment portfolios and in many cases, their homes.

Storm should have been pro-active in ensuring client investments were safe and protected from 1 in 15 year market fluctuations. Storm's greed for commisions overode the practice of giving the best advice for their clients.

I sincerely believe that the practice of commission based advice is seriously flawed for the consumer. The Financial Planning industry can still ensure a regular income from their clients by charging for service. Example: by providing up to date on-line information and recommendation in the form of platform fees etc.

Storm's fatal policies loaded their clients with excessive debt and CBA etc just pulled the trigger. This entire mess will be costly for CBA etc, but let us not lose sight of who's greed put us in this position in the first place."
 
I agree with a hell of a lot of that Frank and the best way is to put some numbers to it:

If storm had $5 billion in investor funds and were receiving a trail commission of 0.2% (forgive me on that figure but that is what I remember seeing - it could be wrong) then they had recurring income of $10 million as long as the monies were sitting in the funds.

To make the same amount again in upfronts meant they would need to write about $142M in new business (7% fee). To break that up - there were about 10-11 branches so each branch had to write $12-14M per annum or $1M per month. That is one poor sucker every month with $500K to invest and a house worth about the same that is unencumbered. Hold a seminar every month and get 50 people to it (200 on the gold coast we have been told) and you are looking to convert 2%.

I believe the advisers were getting 10% of upfronts so a branch with 2 advisers writing $12M were seeing an additional $120K or $60K each on top of their base wage. That is a potential bonus of somewhere between 50-80% based on average FP wages.

The issue and this is the case for much of our industry and is the BIG area that needs to be fixed is that the fee is not linked to the advice. We can argue for months about fee for service, how to charge, asset based fees etc, but you get rid of commissions and you get rid of advisers thinking they need to have people invested to make money.

Maybe I am lucky but my background included the fact that cash is a legitimate asset class and clients should accept the fact that I will continue to charge fees when sitting clients in cash as the advice hasn't stopped just becuase I have them in cash.

It is advisers that feel they need to be "investing" clients money to justify getting a fee that causes them to make decisions not based on what is best for the client but a mix of what is ok for the client and what is needed to justify their existance.

Ban built in commissions. Make advisers set a fee and justify what the fee involves. Getting clients to agree every 12 months is silly - 3 years is more realistic.
 

Hi SJG,

No sweat! Let's call a truce.

Look! In all honesty we Stormies all feel like blxxdy fools now that the truth about Storm and the Banks has been revealed. People have asked why we mortgaged our houses and kept pumping money back into Storm when a financial crisis was looming. I will attempt to answers these questions and explain our thinking when so doing in the next few days.

It must be apparent to all by now that I am not a gullible person and I have a background in corporate management which includes training in financial accounting. How therefore did someone like me get sucked into all this? It's a valid question and I will attempt to answer it (warts and all) in the next few days. People, I feel, need to understand that if a person with my background can be duped, anyone can.

I indulged myself yesterday because Helen was at work. However, I'm off to the dentist (free dental treatment) this morning and I can contemplate my response whilst the dentist is busy drilling into me.
 



Doobsy,

I agree with the above - if you remove the trail commissions you remove the incentive for FPs to have clients invested when they shouldn't be, or invested into vehicles that offer the highest commission for the adviser, rather than the most appropriate product for the client. Whoever Frank's friendly witness is, is quite correct when he states that this issue is no doubt at the core of the the Cassimatis' intention to keep their clients in the market.

Frank & SJG,

I'm delighted to see the power of music has led to a more civil tone from both of you - well done! I'd take full credit, but would probably cop an earful from both of you, so will simply say the more moderate tones of both of your last posts are very welcome, and make for much more pleasant reading. Please keep it up!

Frank, I'll be interested to read your explanation for your reasons for investing with storm. As you say, most of us ex-clients feel like bloody idiots now and I know I've spent many a sleepless night wondering how I could have failed to see the inherent flaws in the strategy. Although I don't claim to be a mental giant, I do consider myself to be of at least average intelligence and while I wasn't financially savvy by any means, neither was I a total financial ignoramus. When asked "why did you" or "how could you" I often find it difficult to put into words my thinking at the time. Maybe GG is right and there was an element of cultish brainwashing at play
 

I think it will make everyone's life easier if we do call a truce Frank!

I know I don't speak for everyone, but as an outsider, I reckon focusing on how you got sucked in, warts and all, is far more beneficial and to be frank, interesting than the legalities. Thats how you can educate people how to avoid the position you are now in. Let the courts decide the other stuff!

I for one am looking forward to your warts and all account.

And DocK,

I am not sure if it was Taylor Swift or a combination of things, but it suddenly clicked (yes I am a bit slow on the uptake) that everyone around here knows my views, opinions etc., and in the spirit of the festive season, my gift to you all is that I get onto something different. That, and this whole thing was giving me a headache!
 

Hi SJG

I'm all for the easy life!

Here's the human face on this. See video (small extract) at http://www.smh.com.au/business/betrayed-investors-tell-their-story-20111213-1ot45.html
 

Frank

I don’t want to prolong the argument either, however, I simply cannot agree with two of your statements above.
You may have a background that should have stopped you from being gullible, but it didn’t. Backgrounds, experience, qualifications and the like don’t count for much unless they’re combined with a healthy measure of common sense.
Storm apparently advised you to mortgage your home to raise a substantial loan, combine those borrowed funds with you super and other personal funds that you might have had, and sink the lot into the stock market. Then use double gearing to raise another big loan, and plough that into the market as well. They told you this was a safe and conservative strategy. You believed them. Sorry Frank, no intention to offend, but that is a prime example of being gullible.

I also disagree with your claim that if it can happen to someone of your background, it can happen to anyone. You can call me an armchair expert if you want, you can tell me I’m being wise after the event. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that if any investment adviser had presented me with that strategy and told me it was safe, there is no way in the wide world that I would have fallen for it.
I’m a fair bit younger than you, but I very well remember the 1987 crash that wiped 25% off the market in one day, and 50% in just a few weeks. I’m also aware of the 1929 crash that created similar havoc in the investment world. The ‘29 crash wasn’t quite as severe as ‘87 in terms of percentage fall in one day or in the next few weeks, however it was far more severe than ‘87 over the longer term, with the US market losing 90% of its value in the three years between 1929 and 1932.
It was 25 years before the market recovered its losses by climbing back up to the 1929 peak.
It all could have happened again, which is why it was so very very risky to borrow a huge amount of money to invest in the market.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you, Frank, and I look forward to hearing your take on how/why you got caught up in the Storm debacle.
 
I Second that, there is no way in the world anyone can convince me to mortgage my house load up debt, promise double digit return.... I tell them they either lying or don't understand compounding...

Storm is a scam no doubt but people has to take some of the blame.

I can understand people who has absolutely no knowledge in finance can fall for it because they may not know that generating a double digit return is NOT easy.... I can tell you I know a few people who told me house price double every 7-10 years and no matter what I told them, they say it cant go down...

I don't know if it goes down or not and I told them I wouldn't know either when and how but what I know is it can not goes on due to law of compounding...there will be period of negative growth and zero growth and that is a fact
I can prove it with mathematics

Super with defined benefits is another scam pretty close to Ponzi scheme again due to law of compounding.
sooner or later the law catch up and your out going is greater than your intake...

Anyone promise return above 7-8% you need to start question pretty hard how they can keep doing it? because after a while they run into trouble with the law of compounding ...this law is like physics law of motion ....moving objects goes up against friction sooner or later it has to stop unless more force is pumped into it...
 

More by Mitch Gaynor @ couriermail.com.au
(With a pic of a very serious Sergeant Sean)
 
This would describe Frank Ainslie and many other hardworking folk caught up in this debacle, although I have no idea whether he still idolises or is an apologist for Manny Cassimatis.

The whole Storm rort has all the characteristics of a cult, with many victims still believers in the model.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/film-highlights-human-cost-of-storm/story-fn6ck2gb-1226222282116


gg
 
GG

Sergeant Sean sure does look focused and a tad bit angry. As I said previously it never pays to piss off a copper. After-all coppers have heaps of mates. It's a bit like when you get pinched by a Hi-Vis Traffic Branch Highway Patrol Ford F6 Typhoon or a Coomera motorcycle cop when doing 145 kms in an M5 on the M1 around Dreamworld.

In the long run it's just a whole lot better to pull over, lose the points, cop the fine and the tongue lashing. (Not that I'd know anything about this type of irresponsible behaviour). With the law getting smarter with the In-Vehicle computing Platform, In-Car Camera and Mobile Automatic Number Plate Recognition your'e buggered now, no point in doing a runner.

Some strange parallels with the Storm saga, isn't there?
 
Solly said:
GG

Interest comments about a cult

S
Click to expand...

This is from the Wikipedia page on Cults.


gg
 
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