‘Houston, we have a Spaceship problem’
Four interim stop orders are the latest in a series of issues between investment firm Spaceship and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) over the last five years.
Millennial-targeted Spaceship was launched in 2016 and launched superannuation fund Spaceship Super in 2017 followed by Spaceship Voyager in 2018.
As of 30 June 2022, Spaceship Super had 18,000 members and held approximately $550 million in assets under management (AUM) while its three managed funds held a combined $450 million.
Spaceship Earth portfolio held $40.6 million, Spaceship Origin portfolio held $50.8 million, and Spaceship Universe portfolio held $360.8 million in AUM.
However, it has not been an easy regulatory ride for the firm and its management.
January 2018 — ASIC issued infringement notices against Spaceship Financial Services and Tidswell Financial Services for making false and misleading representations regarding Spaceship Fund.
ASIC alleged that Spaceship implied the fund “directly and actively selected companies in which it invested members’ funds” when it was actually held in eight index-tracking exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
April 2018 — Spaceship Financial Services and Tidswell Financial Services each paid $12,600 in penalties following the ASIC investigation that found the super promoter and trustee made false and misleading claims about their fundamental investment philosophy.
January 2022 — Former Spaceship Capital Limited director and chief executive, Paul Kevin Bennetts, of Elanora Heights, NSW, was banned by ASIC from providing financial services for a period of six years, after an ASIC investigation found he had dishonestly obtained his Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) qualification.
Bennetts was a director and responsible manager of Spaceship Capital and the company’s CEO between 2017 and 2019.
Around October 2018, Bennetts asked a Spaceship Capital compliance officer to complete his assessments for an AICD course on his behalf and without his involvement. ASIC found that Mr Bennetts’ actions amounted to serious misconduct, as he sought and obtained an AICD qualification by acting dishonestly.
This conduct occurred while Bennetts held a very senior position in a financial services company. ASIC found that his actions placed a subordinate staff member in a very difficult position and constituted a misuse of Spaceship Capital’s resources for his personal gain.
June 2022 — Spaceship Capital director and chairman, Paul Ernest Dortkamp, was banned from performing functions as an officer and responsible manager of a financial services business for two years.
Specifically, ASIC found that in late 2018 and into early 2019, Dortkamp failed to take the necessary steps in relation to a fault in Spaceship Super fund’s consumer onboarding system in a timely way. The fault had resulted in an unknown number of members being assigned to the incorrect super product.
ASIC found Dortkamp had incorrectly concluded that the fault was not Spaceship’s responsibility and therefore that it was not his responsibility to deal with it that ASIC described as a “fundamental oversight” for someone in his senior position.
December 2022 — The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) set aside a decision by ASIC to ban Dortkamp, formerly a director, chairman, and responsible manager of Spaceship Capital, from performing functions as an officer and responsible manager of a financial services business.
Deputy president Rayment OAM QC concluded that, based on the evidence at the AAT hearing, he was not satisfied that Dortkamp failed to act, did not understand the financial services that his company was providing, or was incompetent.
June 2023 — ASIC made interim stop orders on three managed funds and one superannuation product run by Spaceship Capital for failures relating to its target market determination (TMD) under design and distribution obligations (DDO). This was the first time an interim stop order had been issued for a super fund. The orders were valid for 21 days unless revoked earlier.
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
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Finally Spaceship has been exposed, they have deep structural problems they should shut up shop and get out of that space and return the money to investors before its too late. Its the old millennial overconfidence they think they are fund managers they can do anything generation with the attitude we can do anything you can and we can do it better, they have no idea, the markets did the performance for them in the last few years.
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