Adviser in roof-top hunger strike

A Queensland planner who protested against his treatment by Suncorp Metway by sitting for a week on the roof of his former office reached a settlement on late Friday afternoon.

Rick Williams began a hunger strike last Monday on the roof of his closed office in Ipswich, Queensland.

Late on Friday afternoon Money Management spoke to Williams just as he had struck an agreement with Suncorp and was coming down from the roof.

Williams said the agreement settling his dispute with Suncorp was confidential.

The agreement had been struck with Suncorp general manager commercial sales and services Danny Robinson.

“We have come to an agreement with Mr Williams and we are taking him to see a medical practitioner,” Robinson told Money Management on Friday.

“The agreement is subject to privacy clauses, but we have come to a resolution.”

Williams had worked for Suncorp for 10 years before he set up his own financial services practice, Intrinsic Financial Planning Solutions, in July 1999.

Williams claims the business ran very successfully until Suncorp set up in competition and he closed Intrinsic in June last year.

Williams’ client list was sold to Suncorp for $77,000. He believed the business was worth much more, but didn’t have the funds to fight it in court.

So to bring attention to his complaint, Williams launched the rooftop protest surrounded by signs that read “Suncorp is destroying my life” and “Shafted by Suncorp”. The signs were visible to motorists on the nearby Ipswich Motorway.

In an earlier statement, Suncorp said the claims that it had paid too little for the client register were investigated internally and externally.

“Suncorp has done everything in its power to assist Mr Williams,” the earlier statement said.

It said the value of the client register was “as per the agreement Mr Williams entered into when he became an agent”.