Planners banned over Trio
Financial planners who directed $105 million into the doomed Trio Capital funds management business were banned from providing financial services for three years yesterday after the corporate regulator carpeted their behaviour.
Financial planners who directed $105 million into the doomed Trio Capital funds management business were banned from providing financial services for three years yesterday after the corporate regulator carpeted their behaviour. FINANCIAL planners who directed $105 million into the doomed Trio Capital funds management business were banned from providing financial services for three years yesterday after the corporate regulator carpeted their behaviour.The Australian Securities and Investments Commission found Peter and Anne-Marie Seagrim, the owners of the Port Augusta-based Seagrims, had failed to properly disclose to clients they stood to personally gain from directing business Trio's way.ASIC also suspended the licence of the financial planner until November this year.ASIC said that between September 2008 and October 2009, a total of 972 clients with $105 million in investments were directed into Trio Capital funds by Seagrims.Regulators froze $426 million invested in Trio Capital in December 2009. It was later found more than $100 million invested in a Trio Capital fund, Astarra Strategic, had been stolen in Australia's largest superannuation theft in Australia's history.The regulator found Seagrims had failed to ensure its advisers met legal requirements to check whether there was a reasonable basis for advising investors to switch into Trio Capital funds.The regulator found statements of advice given to clients by both Mr and Mrs Seagrim failed to disclose an ''equity return agreement'' between Seagrims and the Trio Capital funds management business.It also found both Mr and Mrs Seagrim failed to disclose advertising paid for by Trio Capital.Yesterday's bans followed enforceable undertakings for two Trio Capital directors announced on Monday and the guilty plea of Trio Capital's investment manager, Shawn Richard.Seagrims is a member of the Association of Independently Owned Financial Planners, which has been a fierce critic of aspects of the federal government's reforms to financial planning.
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