Financial Planning: director of unlicensed financial planner found guilty
A company director has been found guilty of aiding an abetting his company to provide financial services without the required licence. Bad enough - but the products he sold included promissory notes in the notorious Westpoint scandal.
A prosecution by the Australian Director of Public Prosecutions at the instigation of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the latest in the long-running saga over the collapsed Westpont group.
Stephen McArdle, former director of Adelaide-based company, Power Financial Planning Pty Ltd, has been found guilty of aiding and abetting the company to provide financial services without an Australian financial services (AFS) licence.
McArdle, formerly of Adelaide, was found guilty in the Magistrates’ Court of South Australia today following an ASIC investigation into numerous individuals and entities who advised on Westpoint products and a subsequent trial in September 2010.
Power, one of a number of companies operating under the Power Loan banner, pleaded guilty in the Magistrates’ Court of South Australia on 20 August 2010 to carrying on a financial services business without an AFS licence.
ASIC alleged that during 2005, Power arranged for 120 clients of an associated company, National Finance & Trading Group Pty Ltd (NFTG), the proprietor of Power Loan, to invest over AUD10 million in financial products including Westpoint promissory notes and interests in Prime Retirement and Aged Care Property Trust, Kebbel Development Capital Fund No. 2 – Mount Gilead Trust and Kebbel Development Capital Fund No. 3 – The Riverside Pier Trust.
Mr McArdle was a director of NFTG, Power, and a number of other associated companies. ASIC alleged that Mr McArdle entered into agreements to market the various financial products, assisted with the issue of product disclosure statements, and facilitated the transfer of application forms and investor funds.
McArdle’s bail conditions were varied to prevent him from leaving Australia pending a sentencing hearing scheduled for 24 November.
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