Too high a price for female financial emancipation

As a result Lette's brother-in-law Graeme Robertson has taken control of the not-quite-broke company, which was aimed at tapping into the market for female financial emancipation. He is trying to recoup some of the nearly $5 million he and other parts of the Robertson family invested in Superwoman in late 2008.

Given that Superwoman is on "life support", and had to place more than 200 million shares in August to raise a measly $100,000 - in other words, pricing the shares at 4/100 of a cent each - most of the Robertson family's investment is gone.

This week Superwoman, a financial advisory concept targeted at women, even lost its name when it settled legal action by the company that owned the name and associated trademarks.

It also had to take down its website, leaving it reliant on drip-feeds of cash from two groups, Kim Cannon's Brisbane mortgage broker FirstMac and the financial adviser Justin Beeton's JB Global. A third player is the Melbourne investor David Hickie, who specialises in picking up corporate shells like Superwoman, and recently filed a substantial shareholding notice saying he owned 11 per cent of the company.

Superwoman has refused to register the transfer, acting on advice from Computershare, and Hickie is thought to be considering meeting to try to roll the board.

The shares Hickie says are his are registered in the name of Wm Jackers Pty Ltd, controlled by Superwoman's former executive chairman Colin Grant. Superwoman announced this week it was taking legal action against Grant, alleging breach of financial duties, and another of his companies, claiming land in its name belonged to Superwoman because it was funded by a loan from the group.

Grant and the former chief executive David Ross were the two men who brought the Superwoman concept to what was the listed motivational speaking group Empowernet International in 2008.

According to documents filed with the stock exchange at the time, Graeme Robertson's Intrasia Capital and a Robertson family company, Farjoy, were already shareholders in Grant and Ross's Superwoman Financial Solutions, which was going to be merged into Empowernet.

Lette's husband, the famously hypothetical barrister Geoffrey Robertson, was once a shareholder in Farjoy but got out long before the Superwoman deals.

SFS had apparently "leased" the right to certain uses of the trademark from Superwoman Pty Ltd, the company that developed the concept, originally with a member of the ING banking group.

Instead of merging SFS with Empowernet, Grant and Ross in effect sub-let the name Superwoman to the listed company, raising $12 million in a placement to Graeme Robertson's Intrasia Capital and others, as well as through a rights issue to existing shareholders. The money was to fund development of the Superwoman business and shuffle out the old Empowernet activities to the former boss Michael Burnett.

Lette and Stephenson Connolly were brought on board, along with a former head of UBS's private wealth business, Anna McCreery, as women of substance to give the company some oomph. Coincidentally, Stephenson Connolly's other half, the comedian Billy, has long been the face of ING in television ads.

The celebrity board abandoned ship on March 5 this year - precisely a week after Superwoman Group had posted another thumping loss, of almost $3 million for the six months to December 30. Most of the money from the capital raising a year earlier had been spent, to no obvious gain for investors.

Grant was replaced as chairman but remained on the board until May, when he and Ross left. Superwoman lost almost $6 million in 2009-10, according to current management, and blamed it on "poor management of the senior management during the year".

Superwoman has chewed through several directors since the celebrities left, with the board this week consisting of Graeme Robertson as chairman, his fellow Intrasia director Jonathan Warrand, and two representatives from FirstMac - the founder, Kim Cannon, and the executive director, Rod Minell. Minell is acting as the managing director of Superwoman, and a third FirstMac executive, Kevin Kehoe, is the acting company secretary.

Superwoman, which has until the end of the year to find a new name and source of income, is looking at three potential acquisitions - one of which is Beeton's advisory operation.

It is understood FirstMac looked at using Superwoman to get listed but that is not its first preference.

Hickie is understood to be interested in the name Superwoman and the client list the company still owns but which was generated from running motivational speaking events. He is believed to have lined up several women to serve as directors and executives if he gains control, and there is speculation he has somehow managed to get support of almost 50 per cent of the votes.

Last month Burnett, who now owns the name Empowernet, ran one of the "Ultimate Success Summit" motivational events in Sydney featuring Anthony Robbins, Richard Branson, Mark Bouris and Siimon Reynolds. Tickets were about $1500, and tickets to some of the events Empowernet used to run with Robbins cost up to $5000 - so getting hands on Superwoman's database of about 80,000 Australians who can afford to spend that type of money is an attractive asset for anyone who makes money out of financial advice.

Minell says Superwoman already rents access to the client list, and the company retains some Australian Financial Services licences that have value, but only if they have a "responsible person" attached.