The chief executive of Storm Financial offshoot Ignite, Michael Fenech, has denied reports the company’s application for an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) has anything to do with seeking to provide financial planning advice in the future.
Fenech, who acknowledged that the principals of Storm Financial, Emmanuel and Julie Cassimatis, are also the principal shareholders in Ignite, denied Ignite’s application to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for an AFSL represented an attempt to re-enter the financial planning environment.
“Ignite is not associated with Storm, they are separate companies,” he said. “It is true that Ignite is seeking an AFSL but it is not related to planning — it is with respect to Ignite being a software and research company.”
What is more, Fenech argued Ignite is one of Storm’s creditors and that the collapse of the financial planning group had actually cost Ignite some traction in the market, as well as impacting the dynamics of its AFSL application.
He further denied reports that Ignite had relocated to offices occupied by Storm Financial in the Brisbane suburb of Newstead and pointed out that Ignite was located in the Sydney suburb of Balmain.
Fenech said while Newstead was indeed Ignite’s registered address, it merely reflected the company’s original registration and it would be seeking to formally change its registered address.
Explaining the company’s activities, Fenech said it had developed software that Storm used in connection with Colonial First State and Challenger Indexed Funds.
“Storm was our client but, like everyone else, they [owe] us money — we are one of the creditors and we have turned off the software (to Storm),” he said.
Fenech said the software had not simply been re-badged from another provider and was proprietary software that had been developed by Ignite, which employs around eight developers.
He said apart from Storm, the company had two other clients, but he declined to reveal the names of the other companies using the Ignite software.
As well, he said the fallout from Storm and the references to Ignite had curtailed the company’s efforts to sign up a third client.
“We were in the process of trying to sign another client but they walked away [last week], largely as a result of the fallout from Storm,” Fenech said.
