Saxby Bridge to battle ASIC

Saxby Bridge Financial Planningwill next year appeal the decision made by theAustralian Securities and Investments Commission(ASIC) to revoke its securities dealer licence and ban its managing director for five years.

Next March, Saxby Bridge Financial Planning, led by its banned managing director Jeff Braysich, will appeal the charges laid down by ASIC in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Saxby Bridge Financial Planning was stripped of its securities dealer licence last month, following an inquiry by ASIC.

It is understood that Braysich, rumoured to be the last man standing within the Saxby Bridge ranks after the group experienced a staff exodus to Parkes Securities earlier this year, will contest ASIC’s charges against him and his group.

“[Initially] I didn’t make any statements. But now I will. I’m very disappointed. There is nothing more I can say, as much of what has been said has been half truths. We’ve just got a long way to go,” Braysich says.

He says the five year ban handed down against him by ASIC is unjust and has made his life very difficult. Braysich says he is bewildered by the length of his ban, saying other advisers in the industry who committed supposedly greater levels of fraud, or fraud related crimes, received a comparatively lesser charge.

It is understood that ASIC banned Braysich from his adviser duties following an investigation which discovered that both he and Saxby Bridge Financial Planning were involved in the marketing of tax schemes to their clients in a manner that ASIC believed created serious concern.

The watchdog also found Braysich had a serious conflict of interest with the clients of both companies, as he stood to receive, through other groups he ran, a share of the profits generated by some of the tax schemes, including the Preston Vale Vineyard Project and the No Regrets I Project.

ASIC also found Saxby Bridge and ABS, a related company to Saxby Bridge, had a remuneration structure that encouraged individual advisers to recommend tax schemes to their clients over alternative and less risky investments, such as managed funds.