Keith James Flowers, formerly known as Nigel Flowers, of Bathurst, New South Wales, has been sentenced to three years and two months imprisonment, and fined $9,500 for acting dishonestly as a company director and stealing investor funds.
Flowers had pleaded guilty to the charges before the Downing Street District Court on 18 December 2020. His sentence would need to be served by way of intensive correction order which required he perform 500 hours of community service work.
Between 1991 and 2012, Flowers was the founder and director of Flowers Financial Group Pty Ltd (in liquidation) and Flowers Financial Management Pty Ltd (in liquidation), which specialised in providing financial advice to the medical and dental professions.
During 2011, Flowers engaged in a scheme to raise seed capital to fund a proposed initial public offering (IPO) by Avior Australia Ltd, which would have resulted in Flowers Financial Management amalgamating with other financial services companies. The scheme raised approximately $1.48 million from investors who had been long-term clients of Flowers and were collected in a trust account established by Flowers.
In October 2011, investors were advised the IPO was to be deferred and any remaining seed capital would be returned to investors.
Between June 2011 and May 2012, Flowers dishonestly used his position as a director and stole money by transferring $209,500 from the trust account with the intention of gaining an advantage for himself and Flowers Financial Management.
The matter was prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions after a referral from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
ASIC’s investigation was assisted by a report from the liquidators of Flowers Financial Management. The liquidators received funding from the Assetless Administration Fund to prepare and report their findings to ASIC.
In February 2012, Flowers was made bankrupt and ASIC permanently disqualified him in June 2014 from providing financial services and banned him from engaging in credit activities
