Westpoint fallout: Money Matters placed into voluntary administration
Melbourne-based financial planning firm Money Matters Financial Solutions has been put into voluntary administration, largely stemming from its exposure to Westpoint.
Managing director Ian Bristow told Money Management today he had put the firm into voluntary administration on August 9 with Melbourne-based liquidator Ross McDermott Chartered Accountants.
Bristow’s clients reportedly have an $8.5 million exposure to the Perth-based Westpoint, which collapsed last year with debts of about $300 million.
He also reportedly claims to have invested about $400,000 of his own funds into the company and to have lost about $1 million in legal fees and loss of business.
Bristow said his decision to put Money Matters into administration was based on pressure from a “handful of clients” as well as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
“We only had a handful of clients who thought they would make a complaint, and fundamentally those people, as much as ASIC and Westpoint, have been responsible for the business going into administration,” Bristow said.
“Those clients never had a legitimate claim as far as I am concerned, but were influenced by ASIC blaming planners for everything.
“Pretty much every one of those clients has rewritten their history on the way things really were, but we have extensive records in terms of what the real story is.
“A client sends you a communication that they want to make a lot of money, and then because Westpoint goes belly-up they somehow want to change the whole version of events.”
Bristow said Money Matters has “provided that information to ASIC on some of the clients, although we never finished that task because I haven’t been working for some time”.
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