FPA closes door on Cassimatis
More than two years after the cracks in Storm Financial’s advice model began to show, the Financial Planning Association (FPA) has expelled one of the group’s founders from membership.
The FPA found former Storm Financial director Emmanuel Cassimatis guilty of “multiple breaches” of the association’s code of conduct. The breaches included making misleading representations about investment rates of return in order to influence clients to invest in Storm-branded index funds, and making recommendations to clients that weren’t based on a suitable strategy — including a failure to collect and analyse the relevant information from clients first.
The FPA also took issue with the letter sent by Storm Financial to a number of its clients recommending they switch their equity investments to cash, without taking their personal circumstances into consideration.
The association also found Cassimatis had, through his unprofessional conduct, brought discredit to the financial planning profession as a whole.
Cassimatis has been ordered to pay $20,000 in fines.
In January last year the FPA said it had found a basis for charges against Storm Financial as a principal member of the FPA, but the company’s entry into administration meant its membership was terminated before any action could be taken.
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