According to experts, Australian banks could start raising rates themselves regardless of...

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1 THU 28 JUNE 2018 Mediaportal Report Regular Segment: Alan Jones' Comments... 2GB, Sydney, Breakfast, Alan Jones 8:09 AM Duration: 1 min 52 secs ASR AUD 3,861 NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X Regular Segment: Alan Jones' Comments He says a week has been set aside to hear from farmers as part of the banking royal commission. He says thousands of submissions were made and five percent in total will be heard this week. He says Tas farmers, Michael and Dimity Hurst revealed their eight-year battle with ANZ. He says Hurst her 'belted to bits' after their beef and sheep farm investments began to struggle in He says the inquiry heard the ANZ bank placed extremely tough obligations on the family and increased their interest rate when they were already under financial stress. He says their account was frozen. He says the Hursts took the matter to the high court and the ANZ Bank eventually wrote off the Hursts $4.4m remaining debt and paid them $684,000 in compensation. He says Hurst stated ANZ never showed empathy, compassion, and never apologised. He says the hursts are no longer in the farming industry. Jones says it is a disgusting case. He says the commission should sit until 2030 to hear all the complaints. 173,000 All, 83,000 MALE 16+, 88,000 FEMALE 16+ Also broadcast from the following 1 station 4BC (Brisbane) According to experts, Australian banks could start raising rates themselves regardless of... KIIS 1065, Sydney, 08:00 News, Newsreader 8:09 AM Duration: 0 min 19 secs ASR AUD 1,153 NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X According to experts, Australian banks could start raising rates themselves regardless of the official rates staying on hold. Economists say the only reason the banks have not raised rates yet is the banking royal commission. JPMorgan thinks banks will have to do it soon. 148,000 All, 45,000 MALE 16+, 81,000 FEMALE 16+ COPYRIGHT This report and its contents are for the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only and must not be provided to any third party by any means for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia and/or the relevant copyright owner. For more information contact copyright@isentia.com DISCLAIMER Isentia makes no representations and, to the extent permitted by law, excludes all warranties in relation to the information contained in the report and is not liable for any losses, costs or expenses, resulting from any use or misuse of the report.

2 The Banking Royal Commission is set to hear from more cattle farmers in Brisbane... Sky News Live, Sydney, First Edition, Amy Greenbank and Kieran Gilbert 7:39 AM Duration: 1 min 7 secs ASR AUD 558 National Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X The Banking Royal Commission is set to hear from more cattle farmers in Brisbane today. The news comes after the inquest heard a Rabobank manager had financial incentive to fight new loan opportunities in relation to a conflict into a Qld cattle farm sale. 19,000 All, 10,000 MALE 16+, 7,000 FEMALE 16+ Vision ANZ Also broadcast from the following 9 stations Sky News Live (Melbourne), Sky News Live (Canberra), Sky News Live (Brisbane), Sky News Live (Adelaide), Sky News Live (Perth), Sky News Live (Regional NSW), Sky News Live (Regional Queensland), Sky News Live (Regional Victoria), Sky News Live (Tasmania) The banking royal commission has seen rural financial counsellors becoming more... WIN Canberra, Canberra, All Australian News, Corinne May 7:31 AM Duration: 1 min 26 secs ASR AUD 7,365 ACT Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X The banking royal commission has seen rural financial counsellors becoming more increasingly concerned about the state of farmers' finances. Farmer confidence is now at a five-year low, according to the latest Rabobank survey. Delwyn Seebeck from the Rural Financial Counselling Service says dairy is still suffering from the situation that Murray Goulburn created three years ago. 8,000 All, 1,000 MALE 16+, 5,000 FEMALE 16+ Interviewees Delwyn Seebeck, Rural Financial Counselling Service Saul Moncrieff, Rural Financial Counsellor Also broadcast from the following 24 stations WIN Albury (Albury), WIN Ballarat (Ballarat), WIN Bendigo (Bendigo), WIN Cairns (Cairns), WIN Coffs Harbour (Coffs Harbour), WIN Dubbo (Dubbo), WIN Gippsland (Sale), WIN Griffith (Griffith), WIN Hobart (Hobart), WIN Lismore (Lismore), WIN Mackay (Mackay), WIN Mildura (Mildura), WIN Newcastle (Newcastle), WIN Orange (Orange), WIN Rockhampton (Rockhampton), WIN Shepparton (Shepparton), WIN Sunshine Coast (Sunshine Coast), WIN Tamworth (Tamworth), WIN Taree (Port Macquarie), WIN Toowoomba (Toowoomba), WIN Townsville (Townsville), WIN Wagga (Wagga Wagga), WIN Wide Bay (Bundaberg), WIN Wollongong (Wollongong) COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

3 A Tasmanian farmer who lost his properties and was left destitute after the ANZ Bank... ABC Radio Adelaide, Adelaide, 07:00 News, Newsreader 7:04 AM Duration: 0 min 48 secs ASR AUD 3,917 SA Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X A Tasmanian farmer who lost his properties and was left destitute after the ANZ Bank withdrew support, says it will take another 20 years before culture change in the banking sector. The ANZ has yesterday apologised to Michael and Dimity Hirst as part of the banking royal commission hearings in Brisbane. Mr Hirst says the ANZ has shown no remorse before yesterday. 49,000 All, 27,000 MALE 16+, 20,000 FEMALE 16+ Interviewees Dimity Hirst, Tasmanian farmer Also broadcast from the following 6 stations ABC Broken Hill (Broken Hill), ABC Eyre Peninsula and West Coast (Port Lincoln), ABC North and West SA (Port Pirie), ABC Riverland SA (Renmark), ABC South East SA (Mt Gambier), Radio National (Adelaide) Some experts are suggesting the banks could start raising their own interest rates... 4KQ, Brisbane, 07:00 News, Newsreader 7:03 AM Duration: 0 min 24 secs ASR AUD 528 QLD Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X Some experts are suggesting the banks could start raising their own interest rates themselves regardless of the official rates staying on hold. Economists say global markets are putting big pressure on the banks and the only reason they haven't raised the rates yet is due to the banking royal commission. 34,000 All, 20,000 MALE 16+, 14,000 FEMALE 16+ Monthly mortgage could start costing more with warnings interests rates could be raised... WS FM, Sydney, 07:00 News, Newsreader 7:01 AM Duration: 0 min 24 secs ASR AUD 704 NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X Monthly mortgage could start costing more with warnings interests rates could be raised very soon. Some experts suggest the banks could start raising rates themselves regardless of whether the official rates stays on hold. Economists say global markets are putting big pressure on banks and the only reason they haven't started raising rates yet is because of the publicity of the banking royal commission. 88,000 All, 51,000 MALE 16+, 36,000 FEMALE 16+ COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

4 Jones reports Qld farmer Wendy Brauer told the Banking Royal Commission yesterday... 2GB, Sydney, Breakfast, Alan Jones 6:42 AM Duration: 1 min 16 secs ASR AUD 2,663 NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X Jones reports Qld farmer Wendy Brauer told the Banking Royal Commission yesterday about their experience with Rabobank. He says Brauer said she bought another Central Qld cattle farm which cost her family after the bank manager's proposal in He mentions the Rabobank manager represented both the Brauers and the seller and conducted the property valuations. He says Brauer's family was left at least $1m in debt. He recalls PM Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison tried to stop the Banking Royal Commission in the past. 180,000 All, 93,000 MALE 16+, 82,000 FEMALE 16+ Also broadcast from the following 1 station 4BC (Brisbane) The Banking Royal Commission is set to hear from more cattle farmers in Brisbane... Sky News Live, Sydney, First Edition - Early, Amy Greenbank and Kieran Gilbert 6:10 AM Duration: 0 min 40 secs ASR AUD 177 National Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X The Banking Royal Commission is set to hear from more cattle farmers in Brisbane today. The news comes after the inquest heard a bank manager had financial incentive to fight new loan opportunities in relation to a conflict into a Qld cattle farm sale. 10,000 All, 9,000 MALE 16+, N/A FEMALE 16+ Vision ANZ Also broadcast from the following 9 stations Sky News Live (Melbourne), Sky News Live (Canberra), Sky News Live (Brisbane), Sky News Live (Adelaide), Sky News Live (Perth), Sky News Live (Regional NSW), Sky News Live (Regional Queensland), Sky News Live (Regional Victoria), Sky News Live (Tasmania) Northern Tasmania s farming couple Michael and Dimity Hirst have accepted an apology... ABC Radio Hobart, Hobart, 06:00 News, Newsreader 6:02 AM Duration: 0 min 44 secs ASR AUD 2,514 TAS Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X Northern Tasmania s farming couple Michael and Dimity Hirst have accepted an apology from the ANZ Bank after stopping their loans causing them to lose their properties. Michael, speaking outside the Banking Royal Commission in Brisbane, said the Commission s apology was eight years late but good people should accept an apology. Wife Dimity said their relationship had survived but many other families have been split up by the banks action. N/A All, N/A MALE 16+, N/A FEMALE 16+ Interviewees Dimity Hirst, Wife Also broadcast from the following 1 station Radio National (Hobart) COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

5 Economists reckon banks are going to start increasing interest rates very soon. No... WS FM, Sydney, 06:00 News, Newsreader 5:59 AM Duration: 0 min 15 secs ASR AUD 175 NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X Economists reckon banks are going to start increasing interest rates very soon. No matter what the Reserve [Bank] says, it reckons the only reason it hasn't happened already is because of the publicity from the banking royal commission. 35,000 All, 17,000 MALE 16+, 18,000 FEMALE 16+ Economists are expecting the big banks to raise interest rates soon regardless of the... KIIS 1065, Sydney, 06:00 News, Newsreader 5:58 AM Duration: 0 min 11 secs ASR AUD 221 NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Radio & TV ID: X Economists are expecting the big banks to raise interest rates soon regardless of the official cash rate. Global rates have gone up with banks so far keeping them on hold to look good for the royal commission. 49,000 All, 18,000 MALE 16+, 23,000 FEMALE 16+ Watchdog launches AMP legal action Herald Sun, Melbourne, Business News, Michael Roddan Page words ASR AUD 12,160 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 435 word(s), ~1 min 303,140 CIRCULATION BEARING FALSE WITNESS Herald Sun, Melbourne, Business News, Jeff Whalley Page words ASR AUD 63,411 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: 1, cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 615 word(s), ~2 mins 303,140 CIRCULATION Our big day ruined Herald Sun, Melbourne, General News, Caroline Schelle Page words ASR AUD 12,049 Photo: No Type: News Item Size: cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 354 word(s), ~1 min 303,140 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

6 GUY'S TUNNEL VISION Herald Sun, Melbourne, General News, Tom Minear And Matt Johnston Page words ASR AUD 76,959 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: 1, cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 744 word(s), ~2 mins 303,140 CIRCULATION ANZ cartel charges delayed until October The Australian, Australia, Business News, Michael Roddan Page words ASR AUD 3,334 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 379 word(s), ~1 min 94,448 CIRCULATION Payout denied, charity spruiked The Australian, Australia, General News, Sam Buckingham-Jones Page words ASR AUD 3,860 Photo: No Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 526 word(s), ~2 mins 94,448 CIRCULATION AMP disregarded customer interests The Australian, Australia, Business News, Michael Roddan Page words ASR AUD 9,741 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 893 word(s), ~3 mins 94,448 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

7 Hayne 'struck' by farmers' pain The Australian, Australia, Business News, Michael Roddan Page words ASR AUD 6,224 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 764 word(s), ~3 mins 94,448 CIRCULATION Chinese eye rival Healthscope bid The Australian, Australia, Business News, Bridget Carter;Scott Murdoch Page words ASR AUD 6,022 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 398 word(s), ~1 min 94,448 CIRCULATION Revised valuations raise doubts over Blackstone bid for IOF The Australian, Australia, Business News, Bridget Carter;Scott Murdoch Page words ASR AUD 5,921 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 416 word(s), ~1 min 94,448 CIRCULATION AHG's bid to sell logistics unit freezes The Australian, Australia, Business News, Glenda Korporaal Page words ASR AUD 5,921 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 618 word(s), ~2 mins 94,448 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

8 ANZ paying a high price for Landmark decision n that proved to be a blunder The Australian, Australia, Business News, Richard Gluyas Page words ASR AUD 5,598 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 622 word(s), ~2 mins 94,448 CIRCULATION CBA to answer APRA The Australian, Australia, Business News, Richard Gluyas Page words ASR AUD 2,021 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 204 word(s), <1 min 94,448 CIRCULATION MPs join critics of big banks The Australian, Australia, Business News, Glenda Korporaal Page words ASR AUD 4,729 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 497 word(s), ~1 min 94,448 CIRCULATION ANZ dobbed in own advisers Adelaide Advertiser, Adelaide, Business News, Jeff Whalley Page words ASR AUD 3,481 Photo: No Type: News Item Size: cm² SA Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 435 word(s), ~1 min 112,097 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

9 Union bid for 'three strikes' penalties The Australian, Australia, General News, Ewin Hannan Page words ASR AUD 3,718 Photo: No Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 469 word(s), ~1 min 94,448 CIRCULATION Sorry he asked? The Australian, Australia, Business News, Christine Lacy Page words ASR AUD 4,587 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 266 word(s), ~1 min 94,448 CIRCULATION Downsizing scheme: swap home for super? The Australian, Australia, Business News, James Kirby Page words ASR AUD 4,163 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 573 word(s), ~2 mins 94,448 CIRCULATION Seconds out, new 'challenger' targets big four Age, Melbourne, Business News, Clancy Yeates Page words ASR AUD 12,587 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 378 word(s), ~1 min 83,229 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

10 Banks scrambling to buy our trust Age, Melbourne, Editorials Page words ASR AUD 14,434 Photo: No Type: Editorial Size: cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 536 word(s), ~2 mins 83,229 CIRCULATION Sorry tale: Farmers 'belted' by ANZ Age, Melbourne, General News, Felicity Caldwell Page words ASR AUD 17,343 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 571 word(s), ~2 mins 83,229 CIRCULATION PM seeks to capitalise on latest Labor policy surprise Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, General News, David Crowe Page words ASR AUD 39,778 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 452 word(s), ~1 min 88,634 CIRCULATION Mystery Dan no sure thing Age, Melbourne, General News, Noel Towell Page words ASR AUD 31,888 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 930 word(s), ~3 mins 83,229 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

11 Seconds out, new 'challenger' targets big four Canberra Times, Canberra, Business News, Clancy Yeates Page words ASR AUD 5,814 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² ACT Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 378 word(s), ~1 min 17,579 CIRCULATION COURTS Eastman said he 'could get a gun and kill someone' Canberra Times, Canberra, General News, Alexandra Back Page words ASR AUD 6,788 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² ACT Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 505 word(s), ~2 mins 17,579 CIRCULATION AMP hit with legal action over life scam The Australian, Australia, Edition Changes - All-round First, Michael Roddan Page words ASR AUD 8,851 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 837 word(s), ~3 mins 94,448 CIRCULATION The man in the hat with all the wrong questions Australian Financial Review, Australia, Editorials Page words ASR AUD 4,753 Photo: No Type: Editorial Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 553 word(s), ~2 mins 44,635 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

12 Evans Dixon boss stands by vertically integrated products Australian Financial Review, Australia, Companies and Markets, Carrie Lafrenz Page words ASR AUD 6,735 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 810 word(s), ~3 mins 44,635 CIRCULATION Can Evans Dixon survive crackdown? Australian Financial Review, Australia, Companies and Markets, Carrie Lafrenz And Jonathan Shapiro Page words ASR AUD 15,473 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 1591 word(s), ~6 mins 44,635 CIRCULATION Overcautious outlook will send ideas offshore Australian Financial Review, Australia, Special Report, Andrew Colley Page words ASR AUD 7,322 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 738 word(s), ~2 mins 44,635 CIRCULATION Spin-off of big banks' wealth arms will herald a new era Newcastle Herald, Newcastle NSW, General News, John Collett Page words ASR AUD 2,670 Photo: No Type: News Item Size: cm² NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 529 word(s), ~2 mins 23,625 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

13 Farmer savages ANZ for lack of empathy Warrnambool Standard, Warrnambool VIC, General News Page words ASR AUD 1,245 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 361 word(s), ~1 min 8,274 CIRCULATION Farmer savages ANZ for lack of empathy Border Mail, Albury-Wodonga, General News Page words ASR AUD 1,538 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² VIC Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 350 word(s), ~1 min 13,519 CIRCULATION Bank 'belted us to bits', says ex-farmer Launceston Examiner, Launceston TAS, General News Page words ASR AUD 3,712 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² TAS Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 797 word(s), ~3 mins 17,631 CIRCULATION SUPERANNUATION Launceston Examiner, Launceston TAS, Letters Page words ASR AUD 170 Photo: No Type: Letter Size: cm² TAS Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 67 word(s), <1 min 17,631 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT For the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only. Not to be provided to any third party for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia. For further information contact copyright@isentia.com

14 Farmer savages ANZ for lack of empathy Illawarra Mercury, Wollongong NSW, General News Page words ASR AUD 2,806 Photo: Yes Type: News Item Size: cm² NSW Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 361 word(s), ~1 min 10,806 CIRCULATION Bankers defend target-based remuneration Australian Financial Review, Australia, General News, james frost Page words ASR AUD 5,097 Photo: No Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 599 word(s), ~2 mins 44,635 CIRCULATION South Brisbane's Magellan towers future up in the air Australian Financial Review, Australia, Property, Su-Lin Tan Page words ASR AUD 2,245 Photo: No Type: News Item Size: cm² National Australia Industry Super Australia - Press ID: View original - Full text: 263 word(s), ~1 min 44,635 CIRCULATION COPYRIGHT This report and its contents are for the internal research use of Mediaportal subscribers only and must not be provided to any third party by any means for any purpose without the express permission of Isentia and/or the relevant copyright owner. For more information contact copyright@isentia.com DISCLAIMER Isentia makes no representations and, to the extent permitted by law, excludes all warranties in relation to the information contained in the report and is not liable for any losses, costs or expenses, resulting from any use or misuse of the report.

15 Herald Sun, Melbourne Author: Michael Roddan Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 303,140 Page: 48 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 12,160 Words: 435 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Watchdog launches AMP legal action MICHAEL RODDAN FINANCIAL SERVICES THE corporate watchdog has sued beleaguered wealth manager AMP, claiming its advisers to snare lucrative commissions were shunting customers into life insurance policies against their best interests. In claims that have not yet been aired at the financial services royal commission, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission says AMP failed to prevent its financial planners from churning customers into new life insurance policies unnecessarily. ASIC alleges financial planners engaged in rewriting conduct. It says the planners gave customers advice whereby they cancelled their existing life insurance policies only to take out similar replacement policies through new applications rather than transfers. By doing this, financial planners stood to receive larger bonuses than they would have under a simple transfer. At the same time, customers were exposed to unnecessarily to underwriting and associated risks, the watchdog says. It has launched civil proceedings against AMP in the Federal Court. AMP is alleged to have known, or ought to have known, about this behaviour by July 2013, ASIC says. The commission says AMP did not take reasonable steps to deal with the conduct in the two years to the end of June ASIC alleges that this type of advice was inappropriate, and that the financial planners failed to act in the best interests of the clients and to prioritise the interests of the clients, the regulator said in a statement yesterday. The case will rely on the client files of various AMP financial planners, including those of Rommel Panganiban, who was suspended from the industry in ASIC will also allege AMP breached parts of the Corporations Act that require efficient, honest and fair provision of financial services. The case will have a directions hearing on July 27. AMP is still being investigated for the scandals revealed in the royal commission, including its conduct during the fees-for-no-service disaster and in relation to making false and misleading statements to ASIC over its conduct regarding a doctored report from law firm Clayton Utz. Former chief Craig Meller and chair Catherine Brenner have both left the wealth management group in recent months in the wake of the royal commission revelations. Ms Brenner has been replaced by former Commonwealth Bank chief David Murray, while former Insurance Australia Group chief Mike Wilkins who is on AMP s board is serving as acting chief executive. Shares in AMP fell 0.5c, or 1.4 per cent, yesterday to $3.57. Separately yesterday, court hearings for the criminal cartel charges laid against ANZ and investment banks Citi and Deutsche Bank, and several bankers were delayed for three months. Former AMP chief Craig Meller

16 Herald Sun, Melbourne Author: Jeff Whalley Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 303,140 Page: 48 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 63,411 Words: 615 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 BEARING FALSE WITNESS Thirty ANZ bankers reported to watchdog, Rabobank lender had conflict of interest, inquiry hears I recommended these jerks to other people... They came hunting for us RABOBANK CUSTOMER WENDY BRAUER LEAVES THE COMMISSION YESTERDAY Picture: AAP JEFF WHALLEY BANKING ANZ reported scores of its bankers to the corporate watchdog for falsely claiming to have witnessed customers sign important forms, the financial services royal commission has heard. And the problem, which was rooted in the bank s wealth management division, may have extended to other parts of the bank, a senior executive has conceded. But ANZ head of lending services Benjamin Steinberg, appearing at the commission yesterday, said he was not sure if the bank had investigated how widespread the problem was. ANZ last night told Business Daily it had processes in place to investigate inappropriate behaviour and does not tolerate false witnessing of documents, but would not say if a specific investigation had taken place. Counsel assisting the commission Rowena Orr, QC, yesterday presented documents on the poor treatment by the bank of Handley Group, run by Queensland cattle farmer Elizabeth Handley. The cattle-grazing company was battling a combination of droughts, floods and fires, the commission heard. ANZ refused to put off mediation with Mrs Handley even after she had been diagnosed with cancer, it heard. A staff member at the bank also falsely witnessed some of Mrs Handley s documents, Ms Orr said. She said ANZ, in a document given to the commission, revealed it had reported more than 30 financial advisers to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for falsely claiming to have witnessed customers sign beneficiary nomination forms. Ms Orr asked Mr Steinberg if falsely witnessing documents was a practice that extended beyond the bank s wealth management business. My understanding is that the lady involved (in the Handley case) was a branch manager, Mr Steinberg replied. Ms Orr put it to him that this meant the issue extended beyond the wealth business, to which he responded: Yes. Asked what steps the bank had taken to investigate the scale of the problem, Mr Steinberg said he did not know. Ms Orr had previously revealed how ANZ thought it business lender through its 2010 buyout of the Landmark Financial Services loan book. ANZ picked up 10,000 agribusiness customers, but about a third of the loans soon proved problematic, at high risk of default or impaired. Asked about Landmark and ANZ s lending culture broadly,

17 Herald Sun, Melbourne Author: Jeff Whalley Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 303,140 Page: 48 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 63,411 Words: 615 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 Mr Steinberg said there were not systemic problems. I have acknowledged there are issues (but) in the time that I ve been in lending services, there have been thousands of customers that have come in and out, he said. Separately, cattle farmer Wendy Brauer told the commission of the financial and emotional cost after she took advice from a manager at Rabobank a Dutch lender prominent in Australia s agricultural sector. While living in the US in 2009, Mrs Brauer and husband Adrian acted on their Rabobank manager s proposal that they buy another cattle property, called Jamberoo. It left the family at least $1 million in the red, Mrs Brauer said. The commission heard the bank manager had a conflict of interest over the sale, including that the vendor was also a client. Mrs Brauer said she had trusted a bank specialising in agricultural finance. I recommended these jerks to other people and said what a great experience they were and how understanding they were, she said. They put us wards. They came hunting for us. They came looking for us to buy this block. And 12 months later they wanted us to pay them more than what we had borrowed. I don t understand. jeff.whalley@news.com.au

18 Herald Sun, Melbourne Author: Caroline Schelle Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 303,140 Page: 31 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 12,049 Words: 354 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Our big day ruined Fury as wedding venue owes $1.3m CAROLINE SCHELLE HEARTBREAK has turned to anger for couples who are thousands of dollars out of pocket with their wedding-day plans in tatters after a Melbourne venue went bust. Heritage-listed St Kilda Rd mansion The Willows a popular wedding location closed without warning last weekend, with some couples only learning about the voluntary liquidation in an from the owners. More than $1.3 million is being sought by creditors, including former staff, suppliers and crestfallen couples, according to documents. Bride-to-be Rhiannen Skelley, a teacher, had paid the venue more than $8000 for her big day this Saturday. She said she thought the was a scam until she checked The Willows website and social media pages. I had everything taken care of, and for this to happen is just awful, she said. We have put through a letter of demand and started an investigation with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. It s just horrible hopefully we can get somewhere and get everyone s money. She and her fiancee were able to organise an alternative wedding venue in time, but they will have to withdraw funds from their first-home savings account to pay for it. Others received no official warning of the closure. Caroline Huggard heard about it from the DJ she had booked for her January wedding. I m just devastated. We were actually about to post out our wedding invitations, she said. I started crying as soon as I heard it s sickening. Clive Amery is another upset customer. He and his fiancee made a sizeable payment towards their end-ofyear wedding. But they aren t the only ones chasing money from Lewis Hospitality Management Pty Ltd, which ran the venue. More than $92,000 in super contributions is being claimed by the taxman on behalf of staff, Australian Securities and Investments Commission documents show. One former employee claimed some staff weren t paid penalties for late shifts. The director of the company is listed as Aaron Lewis, who has run the venue since 2002 with his wife. Calls and s to The Willows and associated addresses have gone unanswered. caroline.schelle@news.com.au

19 Herald Sun, Melbourne Author: Tom Minear And Matt Johnston Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 303,140 Page: 6 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 76,959 Words: 744 Item ID: Page 1 of 4 GUY S TUNNEL VISION East West Link revamp pledge TOM MINEAR AND MATT JOHNSTON VICTORIA S longest road tunnel could be built between the Eastern Freeway and West Melbourne in a re-imagined East West Link which the state Opposition will take to the state election. The route is one of two options that would be put to experts to consider in the event a Matthew Guy-led Coalition were to win November s poll. The other would take a similar route to that dumped by Premier Daniel Andrews in 2014 between the Eastern Freeway and City- Link at Parkville but with likely modifications to tunnel entrances and lengths. The Herald Sun can reveal the first southern corridor option would see motorists travel beneath the inner northern suburbs on the state s longest underground road, probably joining the above-ground section of the West Gate Tunnel in West Melbourne and linking to the toll road currently being built by Transurban and other roads. This route would likely create a tunnel more than 5km long. That tunnel s entrance point may also start further east of Hoddle St than under the former Napthine government s plan, but the Coalition would ask the Office of Projects Victoria to advise on the most appropriate site. The Opposition is also vowing a string of changes to the design of the North East Link, which would be finished a year later than the East West Link in 2027, so that the Eastern Freeway does not become a giant car park. Mr Guy is promising an immediate review, focusing on the location of the tunnel portal and the number of properties to be acquired, which he is vowing to reduce. He said the planned spaghetti junction of tunnels near Bulleen Rd would be changed because it is threatening local homes. Bureaucrats heading the project have argued the tunnel maze was more expensive but would reduce the impact on properties in the area. Mr Guy is also promising to change the plans for an expanded 15-lane Eastern Freeway beyond Bulleen Rd, though final decisions will not be made until after the review. The Opposition s roads policy, Get Victoria Moving, also includes the removal of 55 intersections in Melbourne and Geelong via grade separations. Of these, 35 have been chosen; the rest will be identified in public consultations. The latest Census data, out last month, shows three in four Melbourne commuters

20 Herald Sun, Melbourne Author: Tom Minear And Matt Johnston Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 303,140 Page: 6 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 76,959 Words: 744 Item ID: Page 2 of 4 travel by car, amounting to about 1.5 million people a day. The city will soon be home to five million people. Peak travel times are getting longer, and congestion is now costing more than $5.5 billion a year. Mr Guy said: Melbourne cannot continue growing at this pace until our roads, transport and services infrastructure catches up. The Opposition Leader has maintained his willingness to build the East West Link since Mr Andrews tore up the contracts for the road in the wake of his 2014 state election victory, having argued it did not stack up financially. Mr Andrews had maintained before the election that compensation would not be paid for walking away from the project because the contracts were not worth the paper they re written on. Infrastructure Victoria, the government s independent road and rail advisers, later called on him to complete planning for a link between the Eastern Freeway and City- Link in the next five years. It said the link would be needed within 15 to 30 years. Infrastructure Australia has identified the link as one of its high-priority initiatives which need to be dealt within the next five years. The RACV and the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry have also argued for the East West Link. tom.minear@news.com.au EAST WEST LINK OPTIONSO CENTRAL CORRIDOR Connects the Eastern Freeway with Citylink in Parkville Tunnel runs under Royal Park Similar option to former Napthine Government plan CENTRAL ROUTE WESTERN PORTAL SOUTHERN CORRIDOR Connects the Eastern Freeway to the West Gate Tunnel in West Melbourne Would be the state s longest road tunnel running under North Melbourne Likely finish above-ground in West Melbourne but plans are less advanced SOUTHERN ROUTE CONNECTING TO WEST GATE TUNNEL

21 Herald Sun, Melbourne Author: Tom Minear And Matt Johnston Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 303,140 Page: 6 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 76,959 Words: 744 Item ID: Page 3 of 4 METROPOLITAN RING RD THREE ROADS TO GET US MOVING TRAFFIC HOTSPOT EASTERN FWY / HODDLE ST 3 NORTH EAST LINK COMMITTED TO BUILDING T TRAFFIC HOTSPOT WEST GATE FWY CITY LINK 2 EAST WEST LINK COMMITTED TO BUILDING EITHER OPTION 1 OR 2 TRAFFIC HOTSPOT GREENSBOROUGH HWY BULLEEN RD RACECROURSE RD CENTRAL ROUTE OPTION 1 EASTERN FWY 1 WEST GATE TUNNEL COMMITTED TO BUILDING FOOTSCR RAY RD SOUTHERN ROUTE OPTION 2 HODDLE ST

22 Herald Sun, Melbourne Author: Tom Minear And Matt Johnston Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 303,140 Page: 6 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 76,959 Words: 744 Item ID: Page 4 of 4 BY THE NUMBERS 19,000 jobs created 55 intersections to be removed $2 BIL+ MONASH FWY allocated to the East West Link and North East Link ALMOST $5 BILLION from the federal government for the two projects TWO different options to build the East West Link 2027 Completion date for East West Link and North East Link $5.5 BILLION A YEAR Cost of congestion $1.3 BILLION WASTED when Daniel Andrews scrapped the East West Link

23 The Australian, Australia Author: Michael Roddan Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 19 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 3,334 Words: 379 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 ANZ cartel charges delayed until October REGULATION: Court hearings for the criminal cartel charges laid against ANZ, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank have been delayed for three months, after an earlier-than-scheduled mention in a Sydney court. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions yesterday said matters relating to Bank of America Merrill Lynch head of capital markets Michael Richardson, ANZ s chief risk officer for the Australian division Rick Moscati and former Deutsche Bank chief executive Michael Ormaechea were mentioned in the Downing Centre Local Court yesterday. The men have been charged with cartel conduct, along with Citigroup s head of capital markets, John McLean, Citigroup s global head of foreign exchange trading, Itay Tuchman, and former Citigroup Australia chief executive Stephen Roberts. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has alleged the individuals and the banks, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and ANZ acted as a cartel when they were faced with a shortfall in demand for ANZ s $2.5 billion share placement to big fund managers in August While Citigroup, Deutsche and JPMorgan were acting as jointlead managers on the raising, JPMorgan is believed to have been granted immunity from the legal action for its co-operation in the investigation. The cartel allegations relate to how the banks then attempted to offload the unsold shares, worth about $800 million, to investors. Michael Ormaechea The court appearance for each defendant was procedural only and no documents were tendered by the CDPP, the CDPP said. Lawyers for the trio applied to be excused from attending the first court appearance, which had been scheduled for next week. Applications were granted on the basis that each of the defendants would be legally represented on each future occasion that the matters are listed for procedural directions in the Local Court, the CDPP said. It said the July 3 hearing was rescheduled for October 9. Criminal cartel conduct charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for an individual and, for the company, a fine of three times the profit made, or 10 per cent of the firm s revenue. The CDPP and the ACCC had not been expected to give further detail on the charges until the men appeared in court on July 3. The explosive allegations sent shockwaves through some of Australia s largest investment banks, and have put the entire finance sector on edge. MICHAEL RODDAN

24 The Australian, Australia Author: Sam Buckingham-Jones Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 2 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 3,860 Words: 526 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Payout denied, charity spruiked EXCLUSIVE SAM BUCKINGHAM-JONES A major superannuation company that refused on a technicality to pay death insurance to the family of a young man who committed suicide boasts about its links to headspace and Super- Friend, two prominent mental health charities. For 10 years, Rest Superannuation denied a payment to the family of Garrath Donaldson, who took his own life aged 22 in Donaldson had a Rest account from his work as a shelf stacker at Franklins. His account entitled him to a $92,760 death benefit claim, which his family sought after he died. They were told, however, he lost his cover years earlier, as the fine print of his terms said that, 62 days after his final shift, if his account was less than $1200 the insurance would end. In early 2005, 62 days after his final shift, his account balance was $ Despite this clause, Rest and AIA Insurance had continued to take premiums out of his account well into 2007 and only refunded them upon learning of his final work date. The case has since been settled, but only after almost 10 years of fighting by former financial adviser Jeff Hudson, who took over the matter on behalf of the Donaldson family and has applied to give evidence at the Financial Services Royal Commission. Mr Hudson said there was an element of hypocrisy in the fact the chief executive of Rest, Damian Hill, was chairman of SuperFriend, a mental health foundation funded by industry funds. Rest also prominently lists its partnership with national youth mental health organisation headspace on its website and in its publications. Rest is a proud sponsor of headspace, Rest wrote in its member magazine, zest!. Likewise, headspace said its partnership with Rest Industry Super means headspace extends its reach to REST s 1.9 million members. Mr Hudson said it was a chance for Rest and AIA Insurance to walk their talk. They had the opportunity to demonstrate clear support for the organisations that they sponsor, SuperFriend and headspace, Mr Hudson said. Instead, they ve battled for nine years to deny this claim. If it was a million-dollar claim, that s fine, but $92,000 bloody hell. Every claim is grey, I ve been involved in many fraud is rife, but to be absolutely inflexible, to refuse to meet us. It s unacceptable. A spokeswoman for Rest said the company provided insurance cover to 1.5 million people and paid out 5100 claims last financial year. The circumstances of Mr Garrath Donaldson s death are tragic. While it is sad for anyone to lose their life, it is devastating for a family to lose a loved one in these circumstances, the spokeswoman said. The policy conditions that existed 13 years ago are different to the insurance cover our members receive today The overwhelming majority of claims made to Rest are paid, whether they involve physical or mental health issues. A spokeswoman for headspace said while the organisation could not comment on the specifics of the case, it is saddened to hear of the death of any young person by suicide. A spokeswoman for Super- Friend said Donaldson s case was a matter between Rest Super and AIA Australia.

25 The Australian, Australia Author: Michael Roddan Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 1 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 9,741 Words: 893 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 AMP disregarded customer interests Wealth manager AMP is facing a Federal Court action over allegations that its advisers were shunting customers into life-insurance policies against their best interests, in order to win lucrative commissions. BUSINESS P17 ASIC ALLEGES NEW INSURANCE RORT AMP hit with legal action over life scam MICHAEL RODDAN FINANCIAL SERVICES Pressured wealth manager AMP is facing a Federal Court action over claims its advisers were shunting customers into life insurance policies not in their best interests, in order to win lucrative commissions. In allegations that had not been aired by the royal commission into banking and financial services, AMP has been taken to court by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission over claims it failed to prevent its financial planners from churning customers into new life insurance policies. In a civil action, ASIC has alleged financial planners engaged in rewriting conduct where they gave customers advice that saw them cancel their existing AMP Life insurance policy only to take out a similar replacement policy through a new application, rather than a transfer. This meant financial planners stood to receive larger bonuses than they would have under a simple transfer. At the same time, customers were exposed to unnecessary underwriting and associated risks, including being uninsured for a period or losing cover for certain events such as a 13-month exclusion period for suicide, ASIC said. AMP last night said it had been co-operating with ASIC investigation into its life insurance practices and would carefully consider the allegations and file a defence in due course. The allegations relate to potential breaches of civil provisions, and each breach carries a maximum penalty of $1 million. The Federal Court suit is the latest action against AMP, which has been severely damaged since the company s head of financial advice, Jack Regan, admitted to the royal commission that the company had misled ASIC 20 times over a fee-for-no-service scandal. AMP is facing five class actions over that issue. There has been a 30 per cent slide in the group s share price to their lowest point in a decade. Evidence before the commission also suggested senior AMP

26 The Australian, Australia Author: Michael Roddan Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 1 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 9,741 Words: 893 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 executives put pressure on Clayton Utz, which was commissioned to compile an independent report on the fee-for-no-service affair. The royal commission last month was invited to find AMP committed crimes by deliberately misleading ASIC about the independence of the report. The scandal has so far claimed the scalps of former chief executive Craig Meller, former chairman Catherine Brenner, former chief legal officer Brian Salter and three directors. The legal action comes as new AMP chairman David Murray prepares to speak tonight at a governance forum in Melbourne. Mr Murray, who was appointed in the wake of Ms Brenner s departure, will be discussing What s gone off the rails in corporate governance in Australia? And how do we fix it? Last week Mr Murray hit out at the former ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft, accusing him not focusing on enforcing the law against financial services companies. Last week ASIC revealed it was working with the Director of Public Prosecutions on its AMP investigation. ASIC conducts some prosecutions of minor criminal matters but refers more serious matters to the DPP, which pursues the cases if it believes wrongdoing has taken place. ASIC is also continuing to investigate AMP for the scandals revealed in the royal commission, including its conduct during the fee-for-no-service affair and in relation to making false and misleading statements to ASIC over its conduct. In the Federal Court filing, Continued on Page 21 $ $3.57 AMP closed down Continued from Page 17 Source: Bloomberg AMP in court for policy scam AMP is alleged to have known, or ought to have known, about this behaviour by July However, ASIC said AMP did not take reasonable steps to deal with the conduct in the two years to the end of June ASIC alleges that this type of advice was inappropriate, and that the financial planners failed to act in the best interests of the clients and to prioritise the interests of the clients, the regulator said. The case will rely on the client files of a number of AMP customers, including that of banned planner Rommel Panganiban, who was suspended from the in- dustry in AMP said it had removed Mr Panganiban s authorisation in 2014 and reported his conduct to ASIC. Mr Panganiban was found to have churned the policies of 49 clients to get commissions. After AMP he had switched licensees to Lionsgate Financial Group, where he was authorised from September 2014 to August AMP is apologising to the customers impacted by Mr Panganiban s actions and they are currently being compensated, an AMP spokeswoman said. We have continued to enhance our monitoring and supervision activities to monitor the writing of new insurance policies. ASIC will also allege AMP breached parts of the Corporations Act that require efficient, honest and fair provision of financial services. The case will have a directions hearing on July 27. A 2014 ASIC review of the life insurance sector found high rates of churn in the industry. Policy lapse rates a key indicator of rewritten business jumped from 7 per cent in the first year to more about 15 per cent of policies being cancelled in the second, third and fourth year. ASIC alleges that this type of advice was inappropriate ASIC ASIC alleges that the financial planners failed to act in the best interests of the clients. ASIC S FEDERAL COURT FILING

27 The Australian, Australia Author: Michael Roddan Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 17 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 6,224 Words: 764 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 Hayne struck by farmers pain MICHAEL RODDAN BANKING FINANCIAL SERVICES ROYAL COMMISSION Royal commissioner Kenneth Hayne has taken aim at the relationship between banks and the receivers that are appointed to distressed assets after a fire sale of farming land by agents working for ANZ led to properties being hocked for 30 per cent less than they were worth. Mr Hayne said he was struck by a case where ANZ s external administrator pushed for the sale of four properties owned by West Australian farmers Stephen and Janine Harley in August while the Harleys were looking to sell in spring to get a better price. Receivers ended up selling for almost $600,000 below a recent valuation. The royal commission has been under pressure to examine the role of receivers in agricultural lending, even though the inquiry s terms of reference exclude any investigation of administrators, as repossessed farms have been sold at below market value, pushing farmers further into debt. Over the weekend, Nationals senator John Williams urged the royal commission to use this round of hearings to probe administrators, while Rural Financial Counselling Service s Chris Wheatcroft called for the actions of receivers to be examined in a roundabout way through the conduct of banks in appointing them. During hearings held at the Brisbane Magistrates Court this week, the royal commission has been raking over the destruction wrought by ANZ s rushed $2.4 billion takeover of rural financier Landmark. The acquisition in the aftermath of the global financial crisis soon wrong-footed the bank with an explosion of souring loans. About a third of the loans later became impaired or were considered at high risk of default soon after ANZ bought the division from the then-listed wheat exporter AWB, and the bank ended up forcing 162 farmers off their land. In one case study, ANZ engaged administrators who forced the Harleys to sell all of their nine properties, including their home and their sheep. When those sales left the Harleys with debts of more than $300,000 to ANZ, the bank threatened them with bankruptcy proceedings. If you appoint a receiver, a receiver will move to sale promptly? Mr Hayne asked ANZ head of commercial lending services Ben Steinberg, who faced his third day of testimony. Mr Steinberg agreed, but noted in some cases Continued on Page 21 FOUR PILLARS P21 Steinberg

28 The Australian, Australia Author: Michael Roddan Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 17 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 6,224 Words: 764 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 Hayne struck by plight of farmers thrown off land Continued from Page 17 receivers may look to improve a property before a sale. Mr Steinberg agreed it would be infrequent for a receiver to manage a business as an ongoing concern. If the receiver believes the best outcome would be to hold a sale, I would expect a receiver to come to us with a strategy around what the best method of realisation for that property is, Mr Steinberg said. But ANZ also had an interest in getting the assets off its books as quickly as possible. Mr Steinberg said holding a loan that was under financial distress attracted an additional capital charge for the bank, as required by the regulator. That capital comes to the bank at a cost, Mr Steinberg said. Mr Steinberg conceded that ANZ had overhauled the way it appointed receivers since it took over Landmark. ANZ now had a panel guiding the process and receivers must agree to a consistent set of terms of conditions. When counsel assisting Rowena Orr asked Mr Steinberg whether receivers might get you certainty but might not get you the maximum realisable value for the property, the banker responded that external administrators had statutory obligations to realise the best price possible for the assets. On Monday at the opening of the round of hearings, Mr Wheatcroft had said introducing receivers to a distressed borrower never benefits a client. I can absolutely categorically say that. There is nowhere to go once the receiver is in, he said. Mr Wheatcroft said there was a massive destruction of value when receivers dealt with assets. Mr Steinberg yesterday refused to accept the bank had systemic issues in the way it dealt with farmers following the Landmark takeover. ANZ was forced to overhaul the way it dealt with its agribusiness customers after a series of damaging media stories piqued political interest in the plight of farmers thrown off their land. Mr Steinberg was unable to say whether ANZ had launched an investigation into staff falsely witnessing documents, after admitting to misconduct relating to the Handley Group. Queensland cattle farmer Elizabeth Handley s properties suffered through fire, flood and drought. But when she asked ANZ to postpone a mediation meeting because she had received adverse biopsies, the bank declined.

29 The Australian, Australia Author: Bridget Carter;Scott Murdoch Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 18 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 6,022 Words: 398 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 DATAROOM Chinese eye rival Healthscope bid A Chinese consortium could be in the early stages of putting together a surprise bid for Healthscope in a deal that would be a major test for the Foreign Investment Review Board and the company s largest investor, AustralianSuper. DataRoom understands a Chinese investment company has been looking at Healthscope for several months and is keen for partners to join it in making an offer for the company. The group is working with lawyers and is understood to be close to hiring an investment banking adviser to help oversee the deal. The company, which is speculated to be Beijing Capital Investment, is thought to be joining a healthcare company to piece together a deal that needs to trump the $4.35 billion offered by Brookfield. A key attraction of Healthscope to the Chinese is its intellectual property and experience as a hospital operator. It s thought Healthscope s business model could be replicated in China and this would continue the trend of Chinese healthcare companies looking to Australia for experience. Macquarie and China Resources teamed up in mid to pay $1.7bn for GenesisCare in a transaction now being used as a blueprint for a potential Healthscope deal. Beijing Capital Investment is a state-owned enterprise under the control of the powerful Beijing municipal authorities. It is considered one of mainland China s biggest private equity companies and reportedly has assets of about $US30 billion ($40.7bn) under management. The company is part of Beijing Capital Group, which is a well-known infrastructure and technology investor. The likely new bid could reignite a bidding war for Healthscope as its initial suitor, BGH, remains keen despite having had its $2.36 a share offer rejected. Brookfield offered $2.50 a share, which valued Healthscope at $4.35bn, but it too was rejected by the company board, which delivered a profit downgrade. If a Chinese bid is made it will be closely scrutinised by FIRB and will be a major test of the government s attitude towards Chinese-led investment. The fact Healthscope controls highly sensitive patient data will be the key consideration for regulators in deciding whether to allow a transaction to go ahead. Also in the centre of the action will be AustralianSuper, which holds 14 per cent of Healthscope and is part of the BGH consortium. The exclusivity between those two parties ends in mid-august, and the super fund has flagged it wants to be a longer-term holder of Healthscope. EDITED BY BRIDGET CARTER carterb@theaustralian.com.au SCOTT MURDOCH murdochs@theaustralian.com.au

30 The Australian, Australia Author: Bridget Carter;Scott Murdoch Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 18 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 5,921 Words: 416 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 DATAROOM EDITED BY BRIDGET CARTER carterb@theaustralian.com.au SCOTT MURDOCH murdochs@theaustralian.com.au Revised valuations raise doubts over Blackstone bid for IOF The takeover battle for the Investa Office Fund is being closely observed by real estate operators and deal-makers. After Blackstone s $3.1 billion takeover offer for one of the country s largest office landlords was ed by the IOF board, the situation became interesting this week when the listed real estate investment trust released a new set of valuations that make the bid by the private equity firm look less compelling. Some are asking whether another player will emerge and be prepared to pay the $5.48 IOF s shares are said to be worth following the revaluation of its assets if Blackstone does not lift its $5.15 a share bid. One scenario is that a Plan B exists where the portfolio will instead be carved up and sold at a higher price by another party. However, some onlookers have poured cold water on this possibility, suggesting that tax implications would not make such a move viable. Still, it is worth noting that when Cromwell Property Group tried to acquire IOF last year, it went to great lengths to attempt such a move, although it is said things did not stack up at the time. One of the big problems is that most groups that Cromwell approached wanted the same assets. The thinking is that the independent expert will likely rule the takeover by Blackstone is fair but not reasonable, which would prompt the board to withdraw its recommendation. IOF trades at a persistent discount to its net tangible assets, which suggests that the market is not prepared to ascribe the same value to the company as Blackstone. IOF s shares closed last night at $5.30. The stock was trading at $4.50 eight weeks ago, before Blackstone s takeover bid emerged. Speculation has mounted in the past that the Macquarie Group may come forward with a rival approach ed by superannuation funds, but this is yet to be confirmed. There is said to have been little noise on this front from the so-called millionaires factory of late, which might mean that the investment bank may not be a rival bidder for IOF after all. It is worth remembering that IOF s manager, Investa Commercial Property Fund, owns just under 20 per cent in IOF so it will have a reasonable say in how events unfold. Any increase in the bid from Blackstone would probably only come just before the shareholder vote in the weeks ahead. The thinking is the independent expert will rule the takeover by Blackstone is fair but not reasonable

31 The Australian, Australia Author: Glenda Korporaal Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 20 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 5,921 Words: 618 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 AHG s bid to sell logistics unit freezes GLENDA KORPORAAL TAKEOVERS Shares in Automotive Holdings Group have been under pressure amid questions about whether Australia s largest car dealer can complete the proposed $400 million sale of its refrigerated logistics business to Chinese conglomerate HNA by June 30. The Perth-based car company announced in November that it would sell the business to aircraft, property and logistics company HNA, which is a 19 per cent shareholder in Virgin Australia. But the Chinese company has been under pressure from Chinese authorities to reduce its debt and cut its aggressive international expansion program. AHG shares have fallen from $3.40 in May to around $2.80 this week following concerns of a weak car sales market in Western Australia and questions over whether HNA can complete the deal by this weekend. A spokesman for AHG yesterday referred The Australian to its latest statement in May, when it said negotiations for the sale of the business were continuing, with both parties working towards a sale by June 30. The statement said the sale process and the associated due diligence had been a major undertaking for the refrigerated logistics management team when the business is going through a significant transformation program and IT systems upgrade. It said the performance of the logistics group during the six months to the end of December had been better than in the same period the year before, but trading this year had been affected by the sale process to HNA and the relatively long lead time to completion. The spokesman said yesterday that the company would advise the market on the status of the sale after June 30. AHG shareholders welcomed the sale of the refrigerated logistics business, which includes brands such as Rand, Harris and JAT, when it was announced last year. The company s share price reached a 2018 high of $3.80 in March but have weakened after the May update. Since announcing the deal with AHG last year, HNA has been under much publicised pressure around the world to cut its debt load and sell international assets including property. It launched a sales process of a reported $20 billion in assets around the world. This included the sale this year of an office block in Sydney s York Street to US private equity giant Blackstone for $200m as well as property on Manhattan and in London. In December last year New Zealand regulators blocked ANZ s proposed $600m sale of its finance company UDC to HNA, citing uncertainty over the ownership structure of the Chinese company. HNA has also cut its holding in Deutsche Bank this year from a reported 10 per cent to 7.9 per cent in April. In its last trading update in May, AHG reported that its retail margins remained challenging and continued to be impacted by regulatory changes. AHG told the market its net operating profit for the year to June 30 was only expected to come in at about $75m, compared with more than $87m for the year to June 2017 and $97m for the year to June The company s managing director, John McConnell, said in May that its retail automotive business was adjusting to finance and insurance sales more slowly than we would have liked. AHG s weaker share price has seen its east coast-based rival, AP Eagers, boost its stake in the company to 25.8 per cent. Questions over whether HNA can complete the purchase at the agreed price comes as Virgin makes its inaugural flight from Hong Kong to Sydney next week. Virgin began flying from Melbourne to Hong Kong last year. Virgin CEO John Borghetti has said HNA played a major role in encouraging Virgin to fly into Hong Kong, where it has a subsidiary, Hong Kong Airlines. $ $2.81 Automotive Holdings Group closed up Source: Bloomberg

32 The Australian, Australia Author: Richard Gluyas Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 21 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 5,598 Words: 622 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 FOUR PILLARS RICHARD GLUYAS ANZ paying a high price for Landmark decision that proved to be a blunder The optics of ANZ s purchase of Landmark s $2.3 billion rural lending book kept getting worse the longer the bank s head of lending services Ben Steinberg remained in the royal commission hot seat. To be fair to Steinberg, who presented as a credible but unbending witness, that s no reflection on him, even as senior counsel assisting Rowena Orr tugged at his memory yesterday for a third consecutive day. The problem is that any bank acquisition in December 2009 is going to look like a stinker when you conduct a post-mortem in June ANZ certainly did itself no favours. From the outset, it botched its communications strategy with 4500 new customers, compounding the issue with a technology glitch that made it difficult for them to open up accounts once they were migrated to the ANZ technology platform. Orr also put it to Steinberg that the bank provisioned for the dramatically higher-risk Landmark book, but had treated customers poorly because it failed to prepare for such a large number of soured loans. While Steinberg rejected the proposition, he set himself up for a later confrontation with commissioner Kenneth Hayne by saying he couldn t provide a detailed rebuttal because he wasn t in the relevant division at the time. ANZ deserves to take the heat for its inept and sometimes callous handling of ex-landmark customers. However, some context is necessary. As with Commonwealth Bank s $2.1bn acquisition of Bankwest more than a year before, Landmark was a distressed business teetering at the edge of a precipice. Both Bankwest and Landmark desperately needed a well-capitalised new parent to survive, and it s an uncomfortable truth that loans were extended to customers who simply weren t creditworthy. For CBA and ANZ, Bankwest and Landmark were shotgun weddings at the peak of the financial crisis rather than well-planned acquisitions. Regulators frantically waved them through, fearful of the devastating consequences of a collapse. For the acquirers it was a balance between risk and opportunity. The word on the street is that ANZ, under then-chief executive Mike Smith, had multiple targets on the radar, eyeing off banks in South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. Smith had a nibble at Bankwest, and announcements were already drafted for a tilt at Suncorp before the plan was cruelled by the Rudd government's introduction of the wholesale funding guarantees in Having failed to pull off those deals, Smith settled on the $US550 million purchase of select Royal Bank of Scotland businesses in Asia (August 2009), a $1.86bn buyout of ANZ s wealth partner ING (September 2009), and Landmark (December 2009). Landmark was a disaster, but it would have been a much bigger one if it had been allowed to fail. Steinberg was unable to say if ANZ had taken advantage of a planned repricing opportunity that would have delivered an extra $6m in revenue. The killer blow, however, was the state of the loan book. Of the $2.3bn book, $272m in loans were in trouble in 2009, with 433 accounts either impaired or classified as high-risk. By 2013, the figure was 1050 accounts worth $722m a little less than one-third of the book. It s little wonder that a paper presented to the ANZ board in August 2015 said: There is a lesson to be learnt from the Landmark acquisition in connection with assumptions that were around delinquencies and expected losses that were not stress-tested. Both Orr and Hayne lost their patience when Steinberg said he was unable to detail the assumptions made by ANZ in relation to Landmark because he wasn t there. Noting that ANZ had chosen Steinberg as its witness, an exasperated Hayne turned to the bank s counsel and said: What am I to do? Shareholders are entitled to ask the bank the same question.

33 The Australian, Australia Author: Richard Gluyas Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 21 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 2,021 Words: 204 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 FOUR PILLARS RICHARD GLUYAS CBA to answer APRA Commonwealth Bank turns its attention to the prudential regulator tomorrow, after last week s court approval for settlements with Austrac over money-laundering and ASIC over attempted rate-rigging. On May 1, when CBA agreed to implement all 35 of APRA s culture and governance recommendations, the bank said it would establish an agreed action plan within 60 days. Time is almost up and CBA has met the deadline. The plan is expected to be a high-level document that includes timelines and executive accountability for completing each remedial action. An estimate of the expected cost of the program will be revealed in CBA s annual result on August 8. An APRA-approved, independent reviewer will also be appointed to report to the regulator every three months, starting on September 30, on the associated enforceable undertaking. The reviewer will monitor items in the action plan when CBA considers they are nearing completion. The key conclusion of the final APRA report was that CBA s continued financial success dulled the senses of the bank, particularly over non-financial risks. Cultural themes included widespread complacency, a reactive stance in dealing with risks, being insular and not learning from mistakes, and an excessively collegial and collaborative working environment that reduced constructive criticism. gluyasr@theaustralian.com.au

34 The Australian, Australia Author: Glenda Korporaal Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 21 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 4,729 Words: 497 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 MPs join critics of big banks GLENDA KORPORAAL REGULATION A powerful parliamentary economics committee has attacked lending practices of the major banks, declaring, in a new report, that they still had a long way to go to improve. The disturbing evidence coming out of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, suggests that, in a number of cases, major banks are moving from a low base when improving their responsible-lending practices, the House of Representatives committee said in a report tabled in parliament. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority is seeking to improve responsible lending practices in the financial sector, the report says. However there is still a lot of work to be done in this area. Chaired by Victorian Liberal MP Sarah Henderson, the House of Representatives standing committee on economics report is the latest coming out of its probe into financial regulators. In his appearance before the committee in March this year, the committee challenged APRA chairman Wayne Byers on whether the prudential regulator had been fulfilling its role in enforcing the prudential standards of the banks. Mr Byers said APRA had been working with the banking industry in recent years to improve the quality of home lending practices in Australia. He said APRA sometimes had to engage in a tug of war with the banks to try to improve (lending) standards across the board. But he said that it was the job of the Australian Securities & Investments Commission to pursue individual matters of misconduct. In its report this week, the committee noted that Westpac had tightened up its requirements on spending information borrowers were required to provide. It said Westpac and its subsidiaries had increased the number of expense categories in their home loan applications from six to 13, to allow for more detailed conversations on the financial situation of applicants. It noted that the changes appeared to have been made by Westpac in response to the royal commission, rather than action by APRA. For its part, APRA told the committee that it had engineered a lot of improvements across the industry to improve bank lending standards, including getting more detailed financial information from potential borrowers. The committee s review of the 2017 APRA annual report repeats its concern about the need to continue to improve competition in the banking sector. The committee has argued in the past that more work needs to be done to remove barriers to new entrants in the banking system in Australia. The committee welcomes the recent changes to the restrictions on institutions using the word bank in lifting this barrier to new entrants, it says. The committee s report into the big four banks, which was tabled in November 2016, recommended the strengthening of accountability measures for senior banking executives, a move which led to the announcement of the Banking Executive Accountability Regime in the May 2017 budget. The report welcomed the introduction of the BEAR reform, which is set to come into force from next Monday for major banks. Wayne Byers

35 Adelaide Advertiser, Adelaide Author: Jeff Whalley Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 112,097 Page: 39 Printed Size: cm² Market: SA Country: Australia ASR: AUD 3,481 Words: 435 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 ANZ dobbed in own advisers JEFF WHALLEY ANZ reported scores of its bankers to the corporate watchdog for falsely claiming to have witnessed customers sign important forms, the banking royal commission has heard. And the problem, which was rooted in bank s wealth management division, may have extended to other parts of the bank, a senior executive has conceded. But ANZ head of lending services Benjamin Steinberg, appearing at the commission yesterday, said he was not sure if the bank had investigated how widespread the problem was. ANZ last night told Business Daily it had processes in place to investigate inappropriate behaviour and does not tolerate false witnessing of documents, but would not say if a specific investigation had taken place. Counsel assisting the commission Rowena Orr, QC, yesterday presented documents on the poor treatment by the bank of Handley Group, run by Queensland cattle farmer Elizabeth Handley. The cattle-grazing company was battling a combination of droughts, floods and fires, the commission heard. ANZ refused to put off mediation with Mrs Handley, even after she had been diagnosed with cancer, it heard. A staff member at the bank also falsely witnessed some of Mrs Handley s documents, Ms Orr said. She said ANZ, in a document given to the commission, revealed it had reported more than 30 financial advisers to the corporare regulator for falsely claiming to have witnessed customers sign beneficiary nomination forms. Ms Orr asked Mr Steinberg if falsely witnessing documents was a practice that extended beyond the bank s wealth management business. My understanding is that the lady involved (in the Handley case) was a branch manager, Mr Steinberg replied. Ms Orr put it to him that this meant the issue extended beyond the wealth business, to which he responded: Yes. Asked what steps the bank had taken to investigate the scale of the problem, Mr Steinberg said he did not know. Ms Orr has previously revealed how ANZ thought it could become the second biggest agribusiness lender in the nation through its $2.2 billion buyout of the Landmark Financial Services loan book in ANZ picked up 10,000 agribusiness customers through the Landmark takeover. But about a third of those loans proved to be problematic, either at high risk of default or impaired, soon after the takeover. Asked about the Landmark book and ANZ s lending culture more broadly, Mr Steinberg said there were not systemic problems. I have acknowledged there are issues (but) I don t see that as being systemic when you can see... in the time that I ve been in lending services, there have been thousands of customers that have come in and out, Mr Steinberg said.

36 The Australian, Australia Author: Ewin Hannan Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 7 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 3,718 Words: 469 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Union bid for three strikes penalties EXCLUSIVE EWIN HANNAN WORKPLACE EDITOR Unions will press federal Labor to a policy that proposes head contractors lose government contracts if they or companies in the contract supply chain breach workplace laws three times. The Transport Workers Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union will seek support for the three strikes policy at the NSW ALP conference this weekend before pressing the change at the party s national conference. TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon said lead contractors on public projects should be held responsible for breaches throughout their supply chain and any fines issued against employers. The state conference motion says unions should have the right to prosecute employers for breaches of workplace laws, and bargaining outcomes struck by a head contractor should apply to companies in the supply chain. It says contractors in government supply chains must report how they are adhering to minimum labour standards Lead contractors at the top of government supply chains should take responsibility for any breaches found in those supply chains, the motion says. Head contractors and the company responsible for breaching labour standards three times would have their contracts terminated. Mr Sheldon said the policy needed to be adopted at a federal level to ensure public money was working for us, not against us. The community has had a gutful of their tax dollars going to fund rip-off merchants. Employers vying for public contracts are not being tested over stolen superannuation, wage theft, environmental degradation and whether or not they are tax avoiders. Quality government standards are not being carried out and this needs to change. Unions also want the right to prosecute companies that breach labour standards, and they want revenue raised from fines for breaches directed into enforcement efforts. Mr Sheldon said unions wanted to ensure accountability for the hundreds of billions of dollars a year spent through government contracts. There should be a fair playing field for employers which are good corporate citizens and which respect the community. He said the federal government sought to lower wages and standards through the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which prevented unions seeking to restrict the use of casual, part-time and labour-hire staff. The federal government s ABCC suspended construction firm Hutchinson from bidding on government contracts because it allowed union signs to be displayed at a site and for intervening in a pay dispute, he said. The federal government also spends up to $80 million on flights with overseas airlines such as Qatar and Etihad companies ed by states which violate human rights instead of supporting local jobs and fair standards by spending the money with Virgin and Qantas. There clearly needs to be a fairness test on how government money is spent. The community has had a gutful of their tax dollars going to fund rip-off merchants TONY SHELDON TWU NATIONAL SECRETARY

37 The Australian, Australia Author: Christine Lacy Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 18 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 4,587 Words: 266 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 MARGIN CALL CHRISTINE LACY christine.lacy@news.com.au Sorry he asked? Well, we guess David Murray did ask for it. Last week, the new AMP chairman and former Commonwealth Bank chief slammed the corporate cop under old boss Greg Medcraft for straying from its main game to be the tough corporate cop on the financial sector beat. ASIC are the cops, Murray told a lunch crowd in Sydney. So a supervisory approach is not appropriate for them even though the previous chairman of ASIC thought that he was a prudential supervisor which has set up a lot of the problems for ASIC. New ASIC boss James Shipton looks to have responded with, careful what you wish for David, with the regulator yesterday taking Murray s AMP to the Federal Court claiming the financial services giant failed to prevent its financial planners from churning customers into new life insurance policies. ASIC will also allege in the court that AMP breached parts of the Corporations Act that require efficient, honest and fair provision of financial services. Of course, Murray s the new head director on the block dealing with the mess that ousted chairman Catherine Brenner and departed boss Craig Meller left behind at the group. But you have to wonder if goading the corporate regulator and berating it for lack of action is really the smartest diplomatic approach to Murray s new job. At least now Murray s got what he wished for, but perhaps everyone else at AMP might not be quite as happy. Tonight Murray will address a business dinner in Melbourne s Southbank. Maybe he ll make it Round Two.

38 The Australian, Australia Author: Christine Lacy Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 18 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 4,587 Words: 266 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 Craig Meller and Catherine Brenner

39 The Australian, Australia Author: James Kirby Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 28 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 4,163 Words: 573 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Downsizing scheme: swap home for super? JAMES KIRBY WEALTH EDITOR The government s much anticipated super downsizing scheme is set to kick off next week, but advisers are already suggesting the scheme which is pitched as a breakthrough for those stuck in valuable homes with little in the way of super will only work for a lucky segment of homeowners. Though it was announced in May 2017, only home sales after July 1 this year are included in the scheme, which allows individuals to put $300,000 each from the proceeds of a home sale into superannuation. Australians over the age of 65 are very restricted in contributing to super and certain work tests must be passed: wealthier Australians also have an additional restriction, with a cap of $1.6 million in super that underpins tax-free retirement income. Under the downsizing scheme, householders can bypass the general restrictions and contribute funds into super raised from the sale of a family home. The owners must have lived in the home for a decade. However, there is no requirement to buy another home or even a smaller home. There is also the possibility of putting in $600,000 in contributions under the scheme if a couple add together their individual $300,000 allowances. Separately, advisers warn householders that downsizing does not always save money unless the replacement home is considerably cheaper and cheaper to manage. Sydney-based financial adviser James Gerrard says: The scheme is not perfect, but it is well worth examining to see if there are benefits you might gain especially if you are considering downsizing at the present time. In reality there is a major split among the retirees who might benefit from this restrictive scheme. One group does not have enough in super and the other has so much put in already they have maxed out. Among the first group are people who live in valuable homes but have very little in super. That is, a couple who have well under $380,500 in investments (the point at which assets start to dilute any potential Centrelink pension payments). To put it another way, if the funds raised from selling the house bring the couple s assets over $380,500 that influx of money will start to dilute any potential government pension payments. There is a taper scale that cuts into the pension on amounts above this level up to a total cut-off level for a couple at $837,000. At the other end of the spectrum, wealthy retirees who have maxed out on superannuation contributions typically a couple who have both hit the $1.6m cap may also find the scheme useful if they sell their home and put $600,000 into their super (effectively taking their total super beyond the $1.6m limit each, but allowable under the downsizing scheme). The issue here is that funds from the home sale must go into what is called an accumulation account in super, not a pension funding account. As such, the funds will be taxed at up to 15 per cent. However, these investors might have uses for having funds in accumulation, such as taking advantage of franking credits. Advisers also point out there is an official tax-free limit for anyone of any age of $18,000 a year, which is generally lifted to $28,000 under old-age allowances. Consequently, Australians can already make $28,000 a year each tax-free outside super, so there may be no need to use the downsizing scheme unless non-super taxfree opportunities have also been completely maxed out.

40 Age, Melbourne Author: Clancy Yeates Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 83,229 Page: 25 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 12,587 Words: 378 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Seconds out, new challenger targets big four BANKING Clancy Yeates The founder of two United Kingdom challenger banks will chair the latest Australian digital startup planning to become a bank and take a slice of the big four s profit pool of more than $30 billion a year. Amid a boom in fintech investment, a new financial business called , which hopes to become a mobile digital bank, was unveiled this week. The company is chaired by Anthony Thomson, the founder of UK lenders Atom Bank and Metro Bank, which are among a group of smaller banks that have emerged in recent years to challenge the incumbents , which is fully owned by payments company Cuscal, said it would aim to offer transaction and saving accounts from early next year, once it was able to obtain a full retail banking licence from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. Its pitch to customers is that it will be technology-led from the start and based around the smart phone, which will lower costs because it will not have the expense of branches or older systems used by traditional banks. The business name is a reference to the number of seconds in a day it claims the tech-based approach will help get customers what they value most, around the clock. Mr Thomson decided to move to Australia about two years ago, and said he was struck by the high level of profitability among the local banks, and the way customers were treated. It was clear to me, as I started to look into banking in Australia, how it just makes the UK banks look like they look after their customers, he said. Mr Thomson said he had been struck by 2016 analysis from the Australia Institute, a left-leaning think tank, that found the local banks profits made up 2.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest proportion among a list of 10 major developed economies. It s just an extraordinary ripoff, he said, pointing out it was about three times more than the proportion of GDP the UK banks made in profit. The chief executive of will be Robert Bell, who was previously the chief of ANZ Bank s Japan business. NATAGE A wants a slice of the big four s profit pool. Photo: Pual Rovere

41 Age, Melbourne Section: Editorials Article type : Editorial Classification : Capital City Daily : 83,229 Page: 18 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 14,434 Words: 536 Item ID: Page 1 of THE AGE Banks scrambling to buy our trust The core business of banks is to buy, sell and safeguard money; the price is the interest rate plus service fees. But banks most valuable currency is trust; it underpins not only their long-term profits, but their very survival. Australia s big four banks are scrambling to return to their core business to retrieve some of the trust they have devalued, even trashed, by manifold malfeasance, some of which has been revealed and amplified via the banking royal commission, including pushing complex and often unneeded investment products on their customers. Commonwealth Bank has now joined NAB and ANZ in moving to divest of wealth management, mortgage broking and insurance businesses the banks started acquiring two decades ago to capitalise on the massive retirement savings pool now the world s fourth-biggest created by Australia s mandatory superannuation system. The multi-billion-dollar flip is another example of anticipation by the banks this time of the costs of their own miscalculation then. It is a maxim of business and journalism that should you wish to see what people really believe, follow the money. Even while the Coalition government was maintaining its scathing rejection of a banking royal commission, the banks knew it was coming. Months before the Coalition government, facing a revolt within its own ranks, finally capitulated to widespread pressure and establish the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, the banks had set up dedicated legal teams with massive budgets. Greed, conflict of interest and apathy towards customer welfare are at the root of much of the stunning litany of misconduct emerging from the royal commission. The business model the banks are abandoning is called vertical integration a euphemism for opaquely rewarding staff for flogging internal products. Client interest can be readily, unethically subordinated in the drive to push more of the bank s product out the door. It is highly likely the royal commission will recommend the banks be prevented from being directly linked to financial planners selling in-house wealth-management products. Westpac, then, might be forced to act, which would mean selling their asset under pressure, The banks move is as pragmatic as it might be commendable. so it would not be surprising were it, too, to dump its investment management arm in coming months. Not that it is saying so for the time being. The use of concealed trailing commissions (where the buyer pays a long-running commission)

42 Age, Melbourne Section: Editorials Article type : Editorial Classification : Capital City Daily : 83,229 Page: 18 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 14,434 Words: 536 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 was banned five years ago, but it allowed the continuation of commissions on products sold before the 2014 financial year. Also, close to four in 10 of its home loan clients came via mortgage brokers; unless this nexus, too, is broken, banks will remain conflicted. The move by CBA and others is as pragmatic as it might be commendable. Financial planning accounts for only about 5 per cent of CBA s revenue but about 95 per cent of the scandals that have so harmed its reputation and devalued its trust. The genesis of the CBA s divestment was allegations five years ago by a whistleblower. That it has taken so long to act on such a fundamental conflict of interest augurs poorly for the banks bid to scaffold and rebuild their credibility.

43 Age, Melbourne Author: Felicity Caldwell Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 83,229 Page: 12 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 17,343 Words: 571 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 Sorry tale: Farmers belted by ANZ Felicity Caldwell Former Tasmanian cattle and lamb farmer Michael Hirst has accused ANZ Banking Group of never showing empathy or compassion in its dealings with his family. In an emotional session during the banking royal commission s hearings on agricultural loans, Mr Hirst, a former Landmark customer, denounced ANZ s behaviour and said his family had been belted to bits. They have never once ever shown any empathy, they have never shown any compassion and they have never apologised, Mr Hirst told the commission. These guys refuse to. The Hirsts, who began investing in forestry in Tasmania in 2006, suffered financial losses in 2009 and 2010 during the collapse of the managed investment scheme industry, including timber company Gunns. The bank s valuation of their NATAGE A012 properties dropped by 40 per cent in 2011, and they were forced to sell. Mr Hirst said his family had dealt with the fallout for eight years. We ve got four beautiful girls and, and we re dealing with all this stuff, you know, for what is it, eight years now? he said. Mr Hirst said an ANZ banker told him in early 2011 that we re a very good business and... basically pumped us up. In August, the bank offered to increase the Hirsts loans, but by late 2011 Mr Hirst said he was told to put the chequebook away. ANZ has admitted its conduct in relation to the Hirsts between 2011 and 2013 fell below community standards and expectations. ANZ raised the interest rate of Mr Hirst and his wife Dimity s account when they were known to be in financial stress. It did not tell the family it disapproved of their property investment model, and obtained valuations of the Hirsts properties without providing them to the family. While it was not compulsory to do farm debt mediation in Tasmania at the time, ANZ s head of lending services Benjamin Steinberg has conceded the bank should have engaged in mediation with the Hirsts at an early stage, and before they settled their debt. The settlement of the debt provided for a sale of all the Hirsts properties by ANZ, a release of all claims by the Hirsts and an agreement by the Hirsts to default judgment in favour of ANZ for the balance of the debt, which Mr Steinberg admitted was tough. After an offer to participate in an independent evaluation of their case in 2015, ANZ paid the Hirsts $684,000 in early 2017 after a protracted negotiation. The Hirsts are no longer in farming. They were the first victims appearing at the banking royal commission to have their lawyer crossexamine a banker. Lachlan Molesworth, the Hirsts lawyer, asked Mr Steinberg why there was a reluctance for the banks to acknowledge wrongdoing. Why is it so difficult for the bank to come out and say, We got it wrong? Mr Molesworth asked. Are you aware that after five years of the Hirsts being left financially destitute... the bank to this day has never apologised to them? Mr Steinberg said he did not know whether an apology had been made. May I take that opportunity now to offer the Hirsts that apology, he said. Outside the royal commission, Mrs Hirst said she wants to see culture change at the top of banking. It s nice to know that it s over now and that we ve been heard, she said. EDITORIAL Page 18

44 Age, Melbourne Author: Felicity Caldwell Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 83,229 Page: 12 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 17,343 Words: 571 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 Dimity and Michael Hirst hope this doesn t happen again. Photo: Paul Harris

45 Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Author: David Crowe Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 88,634 Page: 4 Printed Size: cm² Market: NSW Country: Australia ASR: AUD 39,778 Words: 452 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 PM seeks to capitalise on latest Labor policy surprise COMMENT David Crowe Chief political correspondent Bill Shorten has given Malcolm Turnbull three political gifts in almost as many months, but the Prime Minister seems unsure of what to do with them. The Opposition Leader keeps making decisions that give Turnbull and his government another crowd of aggrieved voters who may be convinced to the Coalition at the next election. First, the Labor policy on dividend imputation scared older Australians who thought their tax refunds were safe. Shorten staged a flip to exempt many of these people, but he gave retirees a good reason to vote for the Coalition. Secondly, the Labor decision on income tax drew a hard line between those who are better off under one side or the other. Calculations vary, but someone on $75,000 today stands to gain more from the government plan over seven years. Thirdly, the surprise Shorten call on company tax means that many small business owners now know they will be better off under the Coalition than under Labor, if not now, then in years to come as they grow. As if to wrap the last gift in glittery paper and ribbon, Shorten announced his decision in a fumbled media conference that worried his colleagues about his lack of consultation and the weakness he had opened up. The dismay on the Labor side is obvious in clumsy interviews such as that of Tasmanian bencher Ross Hart. The internal concern is no media invention, but the caucus is remarkably disciplined and will regroup. Even so, Shorten has answered the prayers of government ministers and benchers who have been watching Turnbull and muttering: Give us something to fight for. Well, they have it now. A worker on $100,000 may resent being tagged as too rich to deserve a tax cut. A business owner with $9 million in turnover may not like losing a tax cut if the company expands. A retiree who flirted with leaving the Coalition two years ago because of its superannuation tax changes may return. In theory, Turnbull can spend every day to the July 28 byelections standing next to a small business owner who is being punished by Labor with a higher tax rate. With three big constituencies likely to feel let down by Labor, the government has an opportunity to mobilise the discontent against Shorten. A political blunder only matters if an opponent knows how to exploit it. Can the Coalition do so? Turnbull and his ministers applied pressure on Shorten in question time yesterday but not enough to make him sweat. Labor has stumbled but will probably recover, so it is up to the Coalition to make this moment count.

46 Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Author: David Crowe Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 88,634 Page: 4 Printed Size: cm² Market: NSW Country: Australia ASR: AUD 39,778 Words: 452 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 Gifts keep coming: Bill Shorten and some of his front bench. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

47 Age, Melbourne Author: Noel Towell Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 83,229 Page: 20 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 31,888 Words: 930 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 Mystery Dan no sure thing The Premier remains an enigma to many, and that could spell trouble at the polls. Noel Towell Daniel Andrews Labor government ought to be a racing certainty to take out November s state election at a canter. A first-term government that won a decent majority in 2014 and is presiding over a booming economy and has plenty of cash for election sweeteners should be an unable favourite. But it s hard to find anybody prepared to bet big money on Labor in this year s spring carnival of democracy. There s a nervousness around this government as the ALP campaigning machine lays its plans to make Andrews the first Victorian premier to be re-elected in 12 years. Yes, his Labor government remains ahead in the polls, with its primary vote proving resilient despite a messy start to an election year at a robust 38 per cent. But the pollsters two-party preferred figures put Labor s nose just in front at 51 per cent to 49, with Matthew Guy s Coalition way too close for comfort. On the ground, things are even tighter than the polling suggests, with Labor holding nine of its 45 seats by margins of 3 per cent or less. So even a little swing against the incumbents could go a long way towards forcing Andrews and Labor into minority government, or even tipping them out altogether. Labor has a lot of weapons at its disposal in the fight to remain in office: its record of getting things done ; the state s powerful economic performance; and the Coalition s dismal efforts between 2010 and But whether Daniel Andrews is a strength or a weakness remains an open question. The opinion polls have a bob each way on the Premier s standing in the electorate. His latest approval rating, 43 per cent, hardly puts him in Bob Hawke territory. But when you consider Steve Bracks, Victorian Labor s Mr Popular, was on 52 per cent in 2006, just before the last of his three election wins, Andrews and his advisers won t be too worried by that metric. Ominously though, Guy has shredded Andrews lead in the better Premier stakes from 20 points three years ago to just seven in the latest Newspoll. The last two Victorian premiers who strung together consecutive terms in the job, Bracks and Jeff Kennett before him, both had an unmistakable connection with voters. Bracks, the nice guy, reached out to the electorate with that famous goofy grin. He was an obvious counterpoint to the hard man Kennett, who connected like blunt-force trauma. The premiers who have succeeded them John Brumby, Ted Baillieu and Dennis Napthine were all very able politicians, but none of them ever built a personal brand they could trade on. Nowadays, not even the Premier s most ardent admirer would try to tell you their man has succeeded in forging a personal bond with the voters of Victoria. That s not because the punters don t like him, exactly. But there is a sense that they don t know him that after years of the Premier appearing on their TV screens most nights, many Victorians are still not sure what to make of Daniel Andrews. Andrews has a lot of political skills, both the ones you learn and the ones you re born with. He performs well on TV and radio, usually stays cool under pressure, says the right things at the right times and generally carries the air of a man who knows what he s doing. But he gives little of himself away; you rarely know what he s thinking. Ask a Spring Street observer to describe Andrews political persona and they will struggle to do it in less than a paragraph. When people don t know you, they will think you re capable of all sorts. Maybe that s why conspiracy theories, some of them pretty out there, swirl around Andrews. Coalition planners have picked up on the vibe, sensing fertile ground out there for a dodgy Dan portrayal as the electoral cycle approaches its business end. There s this too: modern Labor leaders struggle with the trick of reaching the top of their factionridden party without looking too much like a complex, compromised room schemer. Bill Shorten hasn t managed to lose the whiff of the factions that is such a turn-off for voters, and nor has Andrews. Now, Labor people will tell you that inner-metro voters love Andrews for all the lefty causes he s embraced, promoted and legislated, even if his standing is less assured in the outer suburbs and regions. But the party put Andrews and his record front and centre in last November s byelection in Victoria s progressive ground zero, Northcote, and got roundly flogged by the Greens. That should have prompted some chin scratching by the Labor brains trust, and it certainly didn t go unnoticed by their opponents. For the Liberals, there s no questioning their belief that they are onto a winner in targeting Andrews

48 Age, Melbourne Author: Noel Towell Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 83,229 Page: 20 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 31,888 Words: 930 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 in this campaign. This week we ve seen them start to put their money where their mouth is, launching an expensive billboard campaign portraying Andrews as a rorter of public money over the red shirts scandal. That sorry tale is not the only lump of lead in Andrew s political saddlebags after a first term that was regularly disrupted and derailed by the antics of his own party, an illdisciplined rabble at times. Despite all the political untidiness, Andrews and Labor still have a decent barrier draw for the November election. But a one-horse race? Don t bet on it. Noel Towell is The Age s state political editor. The Liberals believe they are on a winner in targeting Andrews.

49 Canberra Times, Canberra Author: Clancy Yeates Section: Business News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 17,579 Page: 23 Printed Size: cm² Market: ACT Country: Australia ASR: AUD 5,814 Words: 378 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Seconds out, new challenger targets big four BANKING Clancy Yeates The founder of two United Kingdom challenger banks will chair the latest Australian digital startup planning to become a bank and take a slice of the big four s profit pool of more than $30 billion a year. Amid a boom in fintech investment, a new financial business called , which hopes to become a mobile digital bank, was unveiled this week. The company is chaired by Anthony Thomson, the founder of UK lenders Atom Bank and Metro Bank, which are among a group of smaller banks that have emerged in recent years to challenge the incumbents , which is fully owned by payments company Cuscal, said it would aim to offer transaction and saving accounts from early next year, once it was able to obtain a full retail banking licence from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. Its pitch to customers is that it will be technology-led from the start and based around the smart phone, which will lower costs because it will not have the expense of branches or older systems used by traditional banks. The business name is a reference to the number of seconds in a day it claims the tech-based approach will help get customers what they value most, around the clock. Mr Thomson decided to move to Australia about two years ago, and said he was struck by the high level of profitability among the local banks, and the way customers were treated. It was clear to me, as I started to look into banking in Australia, how it just makes the UK banks look like they look after their customers, he said. Mr Thomson said he had been struck by 2016 analysis from the Australia Institute, a left-leaning think tank, that found the local banks profits made up 2.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest proportion among a list of 10 major developed economies. It s just an extraordinary ripoff, he said, pointing out it was about three times more than the proportion of GDP the UK banks made in profit. The chief executive of will be Robert Bell, who was previously the chief of ANZ Bank s Japan business wants a slice of the big four s profit pool. Photo: Pual Rovere

50 Canberra Times, Canberra Author: Alexandra Back Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Capital City Daily : 17,579 Page: 3 Printed Size: cm² Market: ACT Country: Australia ASR: AUD 6,788 Words: 505 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 COURTS Eastman said he could get a gun and kill someone Alexandra Back David Eastman told a Canberra couple who were also in dispute with the public service that he could get a gun and kill someone, his murder trial heard on Wednesday. In the 1980s, Phillip Bewley did an interview with the ABC about his own fight with the Commissioner of Superannuation over entitlements and was shortly after contacted by Mr Eastman. The ACT Supreme Court has heard Mr Eastman, 72, was locked in his own 10-year battle to return to work. Prosecutors have pointed to Mr Eastman s desire to return and perceived injustices committed against him by the public service and police as part of his motive for allegedly killing police chief Colin Winchester. Mr Winchester, then the Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner, was shot twice in the head while sitting in his car in his neighbour s Deakin driveway on January 10, Mr Eastman has pleaded not guilty to murder. The trial, on its seventh day, heard that the Bewleys arranged to meet with Mr Eastman at their home after taking his call. Theresa Bewley told the jury that at the meeting, Mr Eastman was angry things weren t working out for him, and said words along the lines of that he could go get a gun and kill someone. She agreed under questioning by George Georgiou, SC, for Eastman, that she could not recall the exact words Mr Eastman said. She said it was possible Mr Eastman said he sometimes got so angry he could shoot someone. Mr Bewley told the ACT Supreme Court trial that he too recalled Mr Eastman saying he was so frustrated that perhaps he could get a gun and kill someone. Mr Bewley expressed difficulty remembering the events some 30 years ago, saying that he gave police statements at the time honestly but asking me to recall precise details now is very difficult. But when questioned by Mr Georgiou on whether Mr Eastman could have said that sometimes he got so frustrated he could kill someone, Mr Bewley disagreed. He said if the barrister was suggesting Mr Eastman did not say the word gun he did not accept that. That was the thing that actually shocked me at the time, he said. He said Mr Eastman was agitated, unhappy and annoyed during the meeting. After Mr Bewley s evidence the judge addressed the jury on the law around motive. Acting Justice Murray Kellam said the Crown led evidence of what Mr Eastman said to the Bewleys and others, including penfriend Irene Finke, only as proof of Mr Eastman s state of mind at the time. He said the evidence went to the Crown case around motive, that is Mr Eastman s frustrations with police and the public service and the level of intense anger for the perceived injustices committed against him. Justice Kellam told the jury that they must only use that evidence for that reason, and not use it to consider that Mr Eastman was the type of person who would commit the crime of murder. The trial continues. David Eastman

51 The Australian, Australia Author: Michael Roddan Section: Edition Changes - All-round First Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 17 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 8,851 Words: 837 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 ASIC ALLEGES NEW INSURANCE RORT AMP hit with legal action over life scam MICHAEL RODDAN FINANCIAL SERVICES Pressured wealth manager AMP is facing a Federal Court action over claims its advisers were shunting customers into life insurance policies not in their best interests, in order to win lucrative commissions. In allegations that had not been aired by the royal commission into banking and financial services, AMP has been taken to court by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission over claims it failed to prevent its financial planners from churning customers into new life insurance policies. In a civil action, ASIC has alleged financial planners engaged in rewriting conduct where they gave customers advice that saw them cancel their existing AMP Life insurance policy only to take out a similar replacement policy through a new application, rather than a transfer. This meant financial planners stood to receive larger bonuses than they would have under a simple transfer. At the same time, customers were exposed to unnecessary underwriting and associated risks, including being uninsured for a period or losing cover for certain events such as a 13-month exclusion period for suicide, ASIC said. AMP last night said it had been co-operating with ASIC investigation into its life insurance practices and would carefully consider the allegations and file a defence in due course. The allegations relate to potential breaches of civil provisions, and each breach carries a maximum penalty of $1 million. The Federal Court suit is the latest action against AMP, which has been severely damaged since the company s head of financial advice, Jack Regan, admitted to the royal commission that the company had misled ASIC 20 times over a fee-for-no-service scandal. AMP is facing five class actions over that issue. There has been a 30 per cent slide in the group s share price to their lowest point in a decade. Evidence before the commission also suggested senior AMP executives put pressure on Clayton Utz, which was commissioned to compile an independent report on the fee-for-no-service affair. The royal commission last month was invited to find AMP committed crimes by deliberately misleading ASIC about the independence of the report. The scandal has so far claimed the scalps of former chief executive Craig Meller, former chairman Catherine Brenner, former chief legal officer Brian Salter and three directors. The legal action comes as new AMP chairman David Murray prepares to speak tonight at a governance forum in Melbourne. Mr Murray, who was appointed in the wake of Ms Brenner s departure, will be discussing What s gone off the rails in corporate governance in Australia? And how do we fix it? Last week Mr Murray hit out at the former ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft, accusing him of not focusing on enforcing the law against financial companies. Last week ASIC revealed it was working with the Director of Public Prosecutions on its AMP investigation. ASIC conducts some prosecutions of minor criminal matters but refers more serious matters to the DPP, which pursues the cases if it believes wrongdoing has taken place. ASIC is also continuing to investigate AMP for the scandals re-

52 The Australian, Australia Author: Michael Roddan Section: Edition Changes - All-round First Article type : News Item Classification : National : 94,448 Page: 17 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 8,851 Words: 837 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 vealed in the royal commission, including its conduct during the fee-for-no-service affair and in relation to making false and misleading statements to ASIC over its conduct. In the Federal Court filing, Continued on Page 21 $ $3.57 AMP closed down Continued from Page 17 Source: Bloomberg AMP in court for policy scam AMP is alleged to have known, or ought to have known, about this behaviour by July However, ASIC said AMP did not take reasonable steps to deal with the conduct in the two years to the end of June ASIC alleges that this type of advice was inappropriate, and that the financial planners failed to act in the best interests of the clients and to prioritise the interests of the clients, the regulator said. The case will rely on the client files of a number of AMP customers, including that of banned planner Rommel Panganiban, who was suspended from the in- dustry in AMP said it had removed Mr Panganiban s authorisation in 2014 and reported his conduct to ASIC. Mr Panganiban was found to have churned the policies of 49 clients to get commissions. After AMP he had switched licensees to Lionsgate Financial Group, where he was authorised from September 2014 to August AMP is apologising to the customers impacted by Mr Panganiban s actions and they are currently being compensated, an AMP spokeswoman said. We have continued to enhance our monitoring and supervision activities to monitor the writing of new insurance policies. ASIC will also allege AMP breached parts of the Corporations Act that require efficient, honest and fair provision of financial services. The case will have a directions hearing on July 27. A 2014 ASIC review of the life insurance sector found high rates of churn in the industry. Policy lapse rates a key indicator of rewritten business jumped from 7 per cent in the first year to more about 15 per cent of policies being cancelled in the second, third and fourth year. ASIC alleges that this type of advice was inappropriate ASIC

53 Australian Financial Review, Australia Section: Editorials Article type : Editorial Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 46 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 4,753 Words: 553 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 The man in the hat with all the wrong questions ITHEAFRVIEW It was pure Hollywood populism. A gruff man in a big white hat hijacks the town meeting to call for justice on behalf of little people who have been left out On Tuesday, federal member Bob Katter became first person to force his way into the financial services royal commission from the public floor - and won surprising extra time this week from commissioner Kenneth Hayne to hear more instances of alleged wrongdoing to his fanning supporters. But why not other politicians, or indeed bankers? This is a solemn royal commission already set up for for a long, exhaustive inquiry. Is it right that it becomes a drop and prop for a politician's own attempts to be tribune of the people? Does that mean more grandstanding can be expected? Will Pauline Hanson now sit silently the next time she visits the proceedings? Already many victim groups are complaining and lobbying Canberra that they are not getting a hearing. But a royal commission conducted well is a slow, detail-driven process. That inevitably leaves vacuums in which conspiracy theories take over on the bigger question of why banks acted as they did. Mr Katter has fed on that impatience. Royal commissions have strengths and weaknesses. They are often politically motivated. That's not always a bad thing when they let off steam. The Hayne commission results from a string of scandals and is being shaped by public submissions, and they have brought a flood of memorable examples. Guarantees on a small business taken from a legally blind pensioner; the gambling roofer given credit cards that would take 138 years to pay off; the false payments and lies at AMP, and the board upheaval that followed. And this week, banks grudgingly forced to accept they had treated poorly farmers who had borrowed too much. Such commissions have the look of a court room, but they feel far more inquisitorial than that Although the banks can challenge the alleged victims in cross examination if they wish, they have so far only done so in the third round on business lending, perhaps where they thought borrowers should have known better. Likewise, the alleged victims have not generally cross-examined the banks, though they did do so on Tuesday after Mr Katter's interjection - a sign that the dynamics might be changing. But the lack of contest makes it hard for a fair observer to know if what is being said at the time is reasonable or not Commissioner Hayne said on the opening day, February 12,

54 Australian Financial Review, Australia Section: Editorials Article type : Editorial Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 46 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 4,753 Words: 553 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 that he would build the commission out of case studies - only then would he look at what findings should be made. But that means first collecting a great deal of essential but highly detailed evidence. Those what-happened questions seem far beneath the question of why the banks acted as they did - which Mr Hayne will get to by the time he concludes. But it is not for Mr Katter to exploit that frustration. And there are other questions he won't want to answer. Farmers go through drought flood, boom and bust Yet those at the commission on Tuesday had been on their property for generations. Why were they still borrowing against it And is the demand for easier finance just a means of socialising losses that no other business would get?

55 Australian Financial Review, Australia Author: Carrie Lafrenz Section: Companies and Markets Article type : News Item Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 17 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 6,735 Words: 810 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Evans Dixon boss stands by vertically integrated products Carrie LaFrenz Evans Dixon Group executive chairman David Evans says he is feeling "revitalised" by the wealth manager's merger and float and does not expect that any royal commission-led clampdown on conflicted advice will shackle the firm. His boutique firm Evans & Partners merged with mass-market operator Dixon Advisory two years ago, creating a business with $18 billion of assets under advice that listed in May with an initial market value of $535 million. The float drew in heavyweight investors such as billionaire Kerry Stokes and Washington H. Soul Pattinson chairman Robert Millner. Sources have told The Australian Financial Review the merger created a cultural clash - even as the brands continued to operate fairly separately - pushing a number of senior staffers from Mr Evans' former firm to leave. The staff were concerned about the model pursued by Dixon to provide advice to clients but also sell them the firm's own products. Such vertical integration, especially when practised by bank-aligned financial planners, has come under intense scrutiny at the banking royal commission. Commonwealth Bank became the latest financial services giant to preempt a crackdown on conflicted advice this week when it said it would spin out all of its wealth operations into a separate $8 billion company called CFS Group. ANZ and NAB have also signalled wealth exits to remove conflicts in advising clients on purchasing the banks' own products. However Mr Evans, who was the chairman of Essendon Football Club during the drug scandal, said Evans Dixon was "very proud of the highquality of the vertically integrated products we offer our clients". The company operates three key units: wealth advice, funds management and capital markets.the funds management segment operates through Walsh & Company and Evans & Partners and operates two joint ventures relating to Australian commercial property and US private equity. Two key Evans Dixon managed listed funds are the $1.3 billion US Residential Property Fund (URF) and New Energy Solar fund, which have registers predominantly filled with clients, despite being open to others for investment The funds management arm generates fees for providing services to the suite of investment funds. For example, Dixon Projects, which sits in the funds management arm, provides bespoke project management design and architectural services for the renovation of mostly New York residential and commercial properties owned by the URF and other third parties. "If there is a conflict of interest as long as if s disclosed, I think it's OK," Mi Evans told the Financial Review in an interview recently. Mr Evans said despite the shocking revelations that have come out of the royal commission, he was not worried about the longevity of the vertically integrated business model. Tve been in this industry for 30 years and dealt with changes in regulation and increases in compliance all the way through my career," he said. "I Continued p20 From, page 17 Evans Dixon boss stands by products actually think this is a good thing. Anything that protects the client I.think is a good thing for the industry. You saw good things come out of FoFA [Future of Financial Advice]." The Future of Financial Advice York that he is "incredibly energised". "This [merger] has really revitalised me. Working with good quality young people who are driven to get great results for clients has really revitalised me. So I could see myself working a lot longer." Since listing the stock had traded below its $2.50 listing price, despite the company in early June upgrading its full-year pro forma earnings guidance from $42.6 million to $50 million (excluding expenses). The company said all three businesses were "experiencing strong performance" during this quarter. Mr Evans added the $170 million IPO was offered only to staff and clients, in addition to select institutions given it was such a small raise. "We had a lot of demand. It was selective because we were not raising a lot of money," he said. The URF flagged a debt restructure in early June after reaching an agreement with Wells Fargo for a new $US200 million revolver debt facility. Lowering the cost of capital is good news for unitholders, however, there was no mention of the negative operating cashflow. Evans Dixon said the URF's new line of credit had no association with the earnings upgrade, although it will make $1 million in fees for arranging the debt The company also recently appointed outgoing Lend Lease chairman David Crawford as a nonexecutive independent director. reform package was introduced in July 2013 after the $3 billion collapse of financial planning group Storm Financial. At its heart is the requirement for financial advisers to act in the best interests of their clients. Some in the industry had expected the 53-year-old, who is a non-executive director of Seven West Media, and chairman of Cricket Australia's Investment Committee, to use the merger as a stepping stone to retirement However Mr Evans said from New David Evans welcomes the tighter regulations, PHOTOJESSICAHROMAS

56 Australian Financial Review, Australia Author: Carrie Lafrenz And Jonathan Shapiro Section: Companies and Markets Article type : News Item Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 20 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 15,473 Words: 1591 Item ID: Page 1 of 3 Can Evans Dixon survive crackdown? Wealth management The group has gone public at a risky time. Carrie LaFrenz and Jonathan Shapiro At the precise moment that Rowena Orr, the feared QC, wrapped up two extraordinary weeks of hearings at the royal commission by raising grave questions about conflicts in financial advice, an exclusive offer was coming to an end. The clients of two firms that serviced different ends of Australia's wealth spectrum had until the afternoon of Friday, April 27, to decide whether they would tip money into the public listing of Evans Dixon, which had been created from the merger of Evans & Partners and Dixon Advisory. After a fortnight of harrowing tales from customers wronged by shonky financial planners, the royal commission seemed set to usher in an era when independent advice would not only be more highly valued than the conflicted services offered by giants like AMP and the big banks, but it might even be legislated for. For the Evans Dixon group, which had a combined $18 billion of assets under advice, the opportunity to win business from the larger players was immense. It was positioned as a winner of the post royal commission era. But for some industry observers, the Dixon side of the business has long been a proponent of the exact conflicts the royal commission had shone a light on. The so-called vertical integration model, in which trusted advisers place clients into products they have created and profit from, has been the primary driver of Dixon's profits, rather than the actual provision of advice. The question for the high-profile businessmen running and ing the firm, and for investors in the newly floated company, is how long will customers and regulators tolerate that? Evans Dixon describes itself as a new force in wealth management But does it represent the industry's independent future or its conflicted past? A long line of bank chief executives, as well as new AMP chairman David Murray, say the selling of companyowned investment products by advisers is not the financial industry's biggest problem and conflicts can be managed. But Independent Financial Advisers Association of Australia president Daniel Brammall says the banks' reputations have been trashed by the royal commission's advice hearings and vertical integration is to blame. "What's been exposed is the ugly culture that has been intact since the advent of financial planning nearly 30 years ago," he says. "Vertical integration is the culprit and its day is over." Brammall says he has had specific complaints from Dixon clients who have reported a "knee-jerk" approach to pushing the firm's own products. "They [the clients] liked the adviser, they liked the admin systems and convenience of having things all under one roof but were put off by the sense they were being sold products rather than provided advice." Dixon Advisory was built on the reputation of executive chairman Daryl Dixon, who before setting up his business in 1986 worked at the International Monetary Fund and the Department of Finance. He had helped draft the superannuation legislation during his time at the Treasury. His firm managed tens of billions of dollars of superannuation for retirees, many of them public servants from Canberra. In recent years his son Alan, who is now chief executive of Evans Dixon, had taken the reins and the firm grew by selling its advisory services, and then its products, to its ageing and relatively unsophisticated client base. Evans & Partners, on the other hand, was a new brokerage firm formed in 2007 by well-connected stockbroker David Evans that pledged to clients high-quality, unconnected advice. Evans tells The Australian Financial Review that he met Alan Dixon eight years ago through a Canberra real estate identity, Peter Maloney. The wives of Evans and Maloney had gone to school together, while Alan Dixon and Maloney hit balls together at Royal Canberra Golf Club. Given the unlikely marriage, some industry observers had assessed that the merger had come as a result of Evans, who is Evans Dixon executive chairman, wanting to step from the dayto-day managing of his business. After an intense period as chairman of Essendon Football Club throughout its doping scandal, he may have been forgiven for enjoying his life a bit more and retiring to his Greg Normandesigned 18-hole golf course, Cathedral Lodge in Victoria. The members and invited guests-only club is one of the most expensive in Australia with a $50,000 entrance cost and annual fees upwards of $10,000, according to Golf Australia. However, Evans says he was motivated to find a partner so his firm could grow: "I had a fundamental view to ensure the business had a good future we needed to get bigger." But not everyone at Evans HQ was impressed with his choice of partner and a culture clash ensued. Evans & Partners advisers thought of themselves as experienced and sophisticated, tending to members of Sydney and Melbourne's elite. On the other hand Dixon Advisory's army of advisers comprised largely of young, highly intelligent graduates who worked hard and played hard as they were inducted into the industry. These advisers were given little discretion to manage their ageing clients' investments, and were instructed to implement the recommendations of Dixon's investment committee. That often meant placing them in listed products that had been created and managed by a firm with close ties to Dixon, Walsh & Co, such as the US Residential Masters Fund (URF), which invested in apartments and brownstones in and around New York City, the Cordish Dixon private equity funds and the New Energy Solar fund. The Dixon style was too much for several of Evans & Partners' senior operatives, who took the opportunity to exit rather than risk their reputation. When Evans and Dixon agreed to the merger, a public offering was always on the cards. And as the royal commission rumbled, the prospectus was published. What soon became apparent to independent eyes was that the combined business was heavily reliant on

57 Australian Financial Review, Australia Author: Carrie Lafrenz And Jonathan Shapiro Section: Companies and Markets Article type : News Item Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 20 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 15,473 Words: 1591 Item ID: Page 2 of 3 exorbitant fees charged on listed funds that were held almost entirely by Dixon customers. Before the merger experts warned a float could attract unwarranted attention to their suite of investments and so it came to be. As part of a due diligence report called Project Liberty for Evans & Partners, KPMG's Transaction Services unit called out the reputational risks that may arise when the float made it apparent that fees derived from Dixon's URF fund accounted for almost 70 per cent of Dixon's revenues. Law firm Minter Ellison also called out the complex URF fund structure, questioned the fees and noted many related party transactions. The law firm suggested Evans & Partners undertake a commercial benchmarking process to helpdetermineifthefees payable by the URF were appropriate. It said there was risk ihat multiple fees were being charged for overlapping services. "My view is the industry is just not going that way," says one small cap fund manager who analysed the prospectus. "The vertically integrated model is broken because there are huge conflicts of interest" A family office investor says: "They have presented themselves as a full service, end-to-end boutique. But they really are a wealth channel to push to excessive fee earning products. And it is pretty much one product [the URF]. And an underperforming one at that" In the lead up to the float the Financial Review calculated the URF had extracted more than $236 million of fees from investors since it was set up in 2011, and charged over $50 million in fees in 2017 alone. Evans Dixon waived its URF management fees in The Evans Dixon camp took exception to the analysis and disputed the Financial Review calculation, in particular working out the fee based on net tangible value. It also disputed claims that the URF had delivered poor returns to investors. But the URF is not the only Dixon product causing consternation. Analysts have also raised questions about the New Energy Solar fund. Although the fund, which invests in clean-energy projects in the United States, has good quality disclosures, the analysts say, it offers investors a poor return for the level of risk they are taking. The project has many similarities to the URF, analysts say. The fee structure encourages the manager to grow in enterprise value via increased debt and equity issuance, as fees will grow commensurately. The decision to market the Evans Dixon initial public offering exclusively to clients was seen by many outsiders as the ultimate vertical integration play. Evans Dixon did not appoint external advisers and the offer was made available to staff, clients and a "chairman's list" of loyal institutions and individuals. Despite media scrutiny, and the shadow of the royal commission cast over vertical integration, the float was successful and well covered thanks to the support of key clients of Evans, who along with Mr Dixon will receive $17.5 million in salaries and bonuses over four years. Among the investors in the $170 million raising were business magnates Kerry Stokes and Robert Millner, executive chairman of fund manager Washington H. Soul Pattinson. Evans disputes criticisms of vertical integration and says the merger has been successful. 'The business is travelling well," says Evans. "We have got lots of things to be proud about We have just been voted top employer of graduates so we have built a terrific culture." The business is travelling well... we have lots to be proud about. David Evans, chairman, Evans Dixon

58 Australian Financial Review, Australia Author: Carrie Lafrenz And Jonathan Shapiro Section: Companies and Markets Article type : News Item Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 20 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 15,473 Words: 1591 Item ID: Page 3 of 3 Illilllllll miiiiiti IlltlllltM HIIIlillM II till I Hi I Illilllllll Illlllilillllililtili.lilllll IMI. III! (II lit. limilliiiillllllllllll I I 1 «. I. I '11111 IIIIIII 'i» Evans Dixon CEO Alan Dixon in New York and his father Daryl Dixon, left, circa 1994 with his book New Super Strategies. PHOTOS: TREVOR COLLENS, DALLAS KILPONEN

59 Australian Financial Review, Australia Author: Andrew Colley Section: Special Report Article type : News Item Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 7 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 7,322 Words: 738 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 Overcautious outlook will send ideas offshore Innovation Australia must embrace risk to keep the best at home. Andrew Colley Australia needs a more aggressive risk appetite toward innovation if it wants to grow its cyber security industry and keep more of the businesses it spawns from moving offshore, says Bugcrowd chief technical officer and founder, Casey Ellis. Bugcrowd's story neatly illustrates the problem. Ellis is a former "whitehat" (or good guy) hacker from Sydney's southern suburbs, who founded his company in 2012, before upping sticks and relocating to San Francisco about a year later. These days he prefers to use terms "hackers" and "attackers" to separate the good guys from the bad. And the nomenclature is important, having playing a significant role in his decision to move Bugcrowd from here to Silicon Valley. Bugcrowd's platform allows organisations to crowd-source cyber security skills from thousands of cyber security experts, from professional to enthusiasts and everything in between. Its main offering is a public bug bounty program that organisations can use to offer sums of money for people who find and report security holes in their services and software, which increase with the severity of the issues they uncover. Ellis said that if he had tried to push this idea in Australia, rather than the US, nobody would have listened. He said Australia's conservative cyber security mindset frowns on rewarding those trying to crack the digital locks, meaning it would have been much harder to get the concept off the ground. If s not that Bugcrowd didn't have success proving its model in Australia in the early days; just that Ellis is certain it would not have thrived the way it has since moving offshore, because fewer organisations and investors would have been open to its model. "[Australians] are creative as a group of people, but at the same time I think when people come up with ideas we tend to wait for them to be validated overseas before we adopt them," Ellis said. "We started the company in Australia. The reason we moved to America was that we knew it would be adopted more quickly in the US market, and that we could validate it here and take it to Australia, which is now what's happening". Ifs difficult to get full visibility on demand for Bugcrowd's services. About 84,000 researchers have signed up for its bug bounty program to address a market of 90 organisations, including Netflix, Mastercard, Netgear, LastPass, Tesla and Australia's favourite tech unicorn, Atlassian. However, the rest of its business is carried out under non-disclosure agreements with individual organisations and involves using hand-picked researchers that have been subjected to a more stringent trust methodology. Nevertheless, in March, BugCrowd raised $33 million in C-series funding from a consortium of investors, including Blackbird Ventures, First State Super and Salesforce Ventures. It has been valued at $US115 million ($155 million). Last year, the company opened an office in Britain and re-opened its Sydney office. With the model now proven overseas, Ellis says the "more conservative verticals" here have remained resistant to the model but "were starting to adopt it" such as in financial services and telecommunications. That doesn't bode well for a public listing here such as is rumoured may happen with Australian-born dataprocessing specialist, Nuix. Ellis said it was something that the company was working toward but that it was far more likely to succeed on the NASDAQ than the ASX. He believes the company is at too early a stage in its life to contemplate the decision in any detail. 'To me if you're building a company with a focus on an exit then you're probably doing something wrong. You have to have that on your mind as a business person but being focused on what you trying to address in the market is the more important thing," he said. With an addressable market that includes an estimated 378,000 unfilled cyber security jobs in the US alone attracting salaries of $US180,000 per year, he says the company still has plenty of potential to grow. "We've raised a bunch of money, we've grown a ton and had a lot of success, but this story is really only just starting," Ellis said. We tend to wait for ideas to be validated overseas before we adopt them. Casey Ellis

60 Australian Financial Review, Australia Author: Andrew Colley Section: Special Report Article type : News Item Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 7 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 7,322 Words: 738 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 Casey Ellis, founder and chief executive of Bugcrowd, says his company would have been unable to grow as successfully if it hadn't moved to the US.

61 Newcastle Herald, Newcastle NSW Author: John Collett Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 23,625 Page: 19 Printed Size: cm² Market: NSW Country: Australia ASR: AUD 2,670 Words: 529 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Spin-off of big banks wealth arms will herald a new era The big banks are getting ahead of any recommendations of the banking royal commission by hiving off their wealth management divisions. Commonwealth Bank s announcement on Monday that it would demerge its wealth management businesses as a separately listed entity follows the announcement last month by NAB that it would sell its MLC wealth business of which financial planning is a major part. ANZ sold out of wealth management last year. CBA will give shareholders shares in a new business to be called CFS Group, which will include financial advice businesses, funds management and mortgage broking. It s these wealth management businesses, particularly the financial planning businesses, that have come under intense scrutiny. The banks take it as pretty much a foregone conclusion that the royal commission will have something to say on the banks wealth management divisions. It s likely to involve at least more regulation and better handling of conflicts of interest. Despite fears the royal commission could recommend changes to the banks that make them less profitable, the market seems to believe the worst of the revelations are behind the sector. Australian share prices overall have risen to decade highs during the second half of June, but the banks have done even better as investors load up on bank shares for their cash dividend yields of between almost 6 per cent and more than 7 per cent. The Commonwealth Bank s shares rose last week after it reached a $25 million settlement with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in relation to rate rigging of bank bill swap rates. Investors see the $25 million in the context of the bank s profits of about $10 billion a year. They even shrugged off the money laundering fine of $700 million, the biggest fine in Australian corporate history. It s hard to see how the royal commission cannot recommend changes to how banking and financial advice are governed. However, as Atlas Funds Management says in a note, for the banks, any recommendations made by the royal commission are unlikely to change the demand for mortgages; the banks core business. Raising the bar for compliance towards the end of a long housing boom is not necessarily a bad outcome for shareholders as it will reduce the level of bad debts in a downturn, Atlas says. In the area of financial advice, recommendations around limiting vertical integration are likely to impact AMP to a much greater extent than the banks, who have either been divesting or have plans under way to divest their funds management and insurance divisions, the fund manager says. In contrast to the big banks, AMP s share price has flatlined during June after falling during its appearance before the royal commission, in which it heard that AMP should face criminal charges for misleading ASIC. There could be more bad news for AMP shareholders with ASIC saying before a parliamentary committee last week it would finalise its investigation into AMP later this year. Michael Heffernan, a senior client adviser and economist with sharebroker Phillip Capital, says the banks look like compelling value. And that s not only for their dividends; the economy is doing well, which augurs well for the banks, Heffernan says.

62 Warrnambool Standard, Warrnambool VIC Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 8,274 Page: 8 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 1,245 Words: 361 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 Farmer savages ANZ for lack of empathy ANZ has come under fire from a Tasmanian farmer who says the banking giant never showed him any empathy or compassion when he lost everything after running into financial problems. Eight years on, Michael and Dimity Hirst finally received an apology from ANZ on Wednesday, after their lawyer questioned one of the bank s executives at the banking royal commission. Mr Hirst unexpectedly gave evidence himself, the first former Landmark customer to directly tell their story to the commission about how they were treated by ANZ. They have never once, ever shown any empathy, he told the hearing. They have never shown any compassion and they have never apologised. The Hirsts bred cattle and sheep at their northern Tasmanian farm and began investing in the forestry industry, but ran into financial difficulties in ANZ eventually wrote off the Hirsts $4.88 million remaining debt and paid the former Landmark customers $684,000 in compensation after a former High Court judge evaluated their case. The inquiry heard the bank placed tough obligations on the Hirsts in a deal that delayed enforcement action and increased the interest rate on their facilities when they were already under financial stress. Mr Hirst said the bank had maintained it did nothing wrong, even when the matter was resolved in February We d been belted to bits for what, five years previous to that, and apparently they had done nothing wrong, he told the commission. We were on this emotional roller coaster and all the time, you ve got to remember, we still had to live. During the hearing, ANZ executive Ben Steinberg apologised to the Hirsts. Mr Hirst, who was applauded by other farmers as he left the hearing room, later said he accepted the apology but noted it took the bank eight years to apologise. A significant number of former Landmark customers felt they were treated unfairly by ANZ after the bank bought the Landmark Financial Services loan book in 2010.

63 Warrnambool Standard, Warrnambool VIC Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 8,274 Page: 8 Printed Size: cm² Market: VIC Country: Australia ASR: AUD 1,245 Words: 361 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 HARD DONE BY: FormerTasmanian farmers Dimity and Michael Hirst speak to the media outside the banking royal commission hearing in Brisbane on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

64 Border Mail, Albury-Wodonga Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 13,519 Page: 11 Printed Size: cm² Market: NSW Country: Australia ASR: AUD 1,538 Words: 350 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 Farmer savages ANZ for lack of empathy ANZ has come under fire from a Tasmanian farmer who says the banking giant never showed him any empathy or compassion when he lost everything after running into financial problems. Eight years on, Michael and Dimity Hirst finally received an apology from ANZ on Wednesday, after their lawyer questioned one of the bank s executives at the banking royal commission. Mr Hirst unexpectedly gave evidence himself, the first former Landmark customer to directly tell their story to the commission about how they were treated by ANZ. They have never once, ever shown any empathy, he told the hearing. They have never shown any compassion and they have never apologised. The Hirsts bred cattle and sheep at their northern Tasmanian farm and began investing in the forestry industry, but ran into financial difficulties in ANZ eventually wrote off the Hirsts $4.88 million remaining debt and paid the former Landmark customers $684,000 in compensation after a former High Court judge evaluated their case. The inquiry heard the bank placed tough obligations on the Hirsts in a deal that delayed enforcement action and increased the interest rate on their facilities when they were already under financial stress. Mr Hirst said the bank had maintained it did nothing wrong, even when the matter was resolved in February We d been belted to bits for what, five years previous to that, and apparently they had done nothing wrong, he told the commission. We were on this emotional roller coaster and all the time, you ve got to remember, we still had to live. During the hearing, ANZ executive Ben Steinberg apologised to the Hirsts. Mr Hirst, who was applauded by other farmers as he left the hearing room, later said he accepted the apology but noted it took the bank eight years to apologise. A significant number of former Landmark customers felt they were treated unfairly by ANZ after the bank bought the Landmark Financial Services loan book in 2010.

65 Border Mail, Albury-Wodonga Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 13,519 Page: 11 Printed Size: cm² Market: NSW Country: Australia ASR: AUD 1,538 Words: 350 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 HARD DONE BY: FormerTasmanian farmers Dimity and Michael Hirst speak to the media outside the banking royal commission hearing in Brisbane on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

66 Launceston Examiner, Launceston TAS Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 17,631 Page: 12 Printed Size: cm² Market: TAS Country: Australia ASR: AUD 3,712 Words: 797 Item ID: Page 1 of 3 Bank beltedusto bits, says ex-farmer FORMER Tasmanian cattle and lamb farmer Michael Hirst has accused ANZ Banking Group of never showing empathy or compassion in its dealings with his family. In an emotional session during the banking royal commission's hearings on agricultural loans, Mr Hirst, a former Landmark customer, denounced ANZ's behaviour and said his family had been belted to bits. They have never once ever shown any empathy, they have never shown any compassion and they have never apologised, and where I m from, where I m from, if you do something wrong, there's nothing wrong with apologising, Mr Hirst told the commission. But these guys refuse to. Mr Hirst said his family had dealt with the fall-out with ANZ for eight years. We've got four beautiful girls and, and we re dealing with all this stuff, you know, for what is it, eight years now? he said. Mr Hirst. who in 2006 began investing in the forestry industry in Tasmania, said in early 2011 an ANZ staffer took him out to a decent restaurant in our local town. The banker told him we're a very good business and we want to see more of you, and basically pumped us up, he said. In August, the bank offered to increase the Hirsts loans, but by late 2011 Mr Hirst said he was told to put the cheque book away. ANZ has admitted its conduct in relation to the Hirsts between 2011 and 2013 fell below community standards and expectations. ANZ raised the interest rate of Mr Hirst and his wife Dimity's account when they were known to be in financial stress, increasing pressure on the family. It never told the family it disapproved of their property investment model, and obtained updated valuations of the Hirsts' properties without providing them to the family. While it was not compulsory to do farm debt mediation in Tasmania at the time, ANZ's head of lending services Benjamin Steinberg has conceded the bank should have engaged in mediation with the Hirsts at an early stage, and before they settled their debt. The settlement of the debt provided for a sale of all the Hirsts properties by ANZ, a release of all claims by the Hirsts and an agreement by the Hirsts to default judgment in favour of ANZ for the balance of the debt, which Mr Steinberg admitted was tough. After an offer to participate in an independent evaluation of their case in 2015, ANZ paid the Hirsts $684,000 in early 2017 after a protracted negotiation. The Hirsts are no longer in farming. They were the first victims appearing at the banking royal commission to have their lawyer cross-examine a banker. The Hirsts lawyer Lachlan Molesworth asked Mr Steinberg why there was a reluctance for the banks to acknowledge wrongdoing. Why is it so difficult for the bank to come out and say, We got it wrong? Mr Molesworth asked. Do you think it is important for victims, and do you think the community expects an apology to be provided to, by banks, when wrongdoing has occurred? Are you aware that after five years of the Hirsts being left financially destitute... the bank to this day has never apologised to them? Mr Steinberg said he did not deal with the Hirsts matter, so he didn't know whether an apology was made. May I take that opportunity now to offer the Hirsts that apology, he said. Outside the royal commission, Mrs Hirst said she never thought she would see this day, or receive an apology.

67 Launceston Examiner, Launceston TAS Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 17,631 Page: 12 Printed Size: cm² Market: TAS Country: Australia ASR: AUD 3,712 Words: 797 Item ID: Page 2 of 3 It's nice to know that it's over now and that we've been heard and that we could speak for the so many thousands of people who haven't been given the opportunity to do so, she said. We just hope and pray that now people can have opportunities that weren't given to us to be able to get help and get advice and that this doesn't ever happen again. Mrs Hirst said the effect on the couple's children had been overwhelming. I think for us that s been the hardest thing, what they ve had to cope with, how they ve had to see us, that when they came to change the locks on the house - that is something that young children should never ever have to go through, she said. Mr Hirst criticised the ANZ internal target to churn debts out of its high-risk lending services division in as little as 18 months. The young gun coming up, he s going to stick to that, don t worry about that, because that s the only way he ll go up the ladder, he s not going to go up the ladder if he draws it out for 48 months. -SMH

68 Launceston Examiner, Launceston TAS Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 17,631 Page: 12 Printed Size: cm² Market: TAS Country: Australia ASR: AUD 3,712 Words: 797 Item ID: Page 3 of 3 INQUIRY: Former Tasmanian farmers Dimity and Michael Hirst talk to the media outside the Brisbane Magistrate Court. Picture: AAP

69 Launceston Examiner, Launceston TAS Section: Letters Article type : Letter Classification : Regional : 17,631 Page: 25 Printed Size: 31.00cm² Market: TAS Country: Australia ASR: AUD 170 Words: 67 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 SUPERANNUATION WITH the government's liability for superannuation not expected to be completely paid off until 2080, thetreasurer should try to speed it up a bit. Actuarial determined lump sum payouts would be a start, he could begin with me. I plan to beat the system by following Joe Hockey s (who was he?) advice and live to be 130, so I would be a bargain. Malcolm Scott, Newstead.

70 Illawarra Mercury, Wollongong NSW Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 10,806 Page: 12 Printed Size: cm² Market: NSW Country: Australia ASR: AUD 2,806 Words: 361 Item ID: Page 1 of 2 Farmer savages ANZ for lack of empathy ANZ has come under fire from a Tasmanian farmer who says the banking giant never showed him any empathy or compassion when he lost everything after running into financial problems. Eight years on, Michael and Dimity Hirst finally received an apology from ANZ on Wednesday, after their lawyer questioned one of the bank s executives at the banking royal commission. Mr Hirst unexpectedly gave evidence himself, the first former Landmark customer to directly tell their story to the commission about how they were treated by ANZ. They have never once, ever shown any empathy, he told the hearing. They have never shown any compassion and they have never apologised. The Hirsts bred cattle and sheep at their northern Tasmanian farm and began investing in the forestry industry, but ran into financial difficulties in ANZ eventually wrote off the Hirsts $4.88 million remaining debt and paid the former Landmark customers $684,000 in compensation after a former High Court judge evaluated their case. The inquiry heard the bank placed tough obligations on the Hirsts in a deal that delayed enforcement action and increased the interest rate on their facilities when they were already under financial stress. Mr Hirst said the bank had maintained it did nothing wrong, even when the matter was resolved in February We d been belted to bits for what, five years previous to that, and apparently they had done nothing wrong, he told the commission. We were on this emotional roller coaster and all the time, you ve got to remember, we still had to live. During the hearing, ANZ executive Ben Steinberg apologised to the Hirsts. Mr Hirst, who was applauded by other farmers as he left the hearing room, later said he accepted the apology but noted it took the bank eight years to apologise. A significant number of former Landmark customers felt they were treated unfairly by ANZ after the bank bought the Landmark Financial Services loan book in 2010.

71 Illawarra Mercury, Wollongong NSW Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : Regional : 10,806 Page: 12 Printed Size: cm² Market: NSW Country: Australia ASR: AUD 2,806 Words: 361 Item ID: Page 2 of 2 HARD DONE BY: FormerTasmanian farmers Dimity and Michael Hirst speak to the media outside the banking royal commission hearing in Brisbane on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

72 Australian Financial Review, Australia Author: james frost Section: General News Article type : News Item Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 6 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 5,097 Words: 599 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 Bankers defend target-based remuneration Incentives James Frost Rabobank executive Bradley James has defended the industry's long-standing practice of rewarding employees for generating more business as the Hayne royal commission returned to root causes of misconduct in financial services. The regional manager for Rabobank in southern Queensland and northern NSW put in a strong defence of the widely adopted model of remuneration, however he found himself on less certain ground when called up to explain why the bank ignored a directive from APRA for almost five years. Mr James told senior counsel assisting Rowena Orr, QQ he had no problem with bankers writing loans to meet financial targets providing those loans were "qualified" and "within the confines of credit quality" guidelines issued by the bank. "Does Rabobank still set targets for its bank managers that have lending targets?" Ms Orr asked "Yes," Mr James replied. "Do you see any difficulty with that from a customer perspective, Mr James?" Ms Orr asked "Absolutely not" Mr James replied "No difficulties?" Ms Orr asked. "None whatsoever," Mr James replied. Mr James was being asked whether financial targets led a Rabobank banker to approach a customer and case study Mrs Wendy Brauer with the opportunity to purchase a property from another of his customers and whether or not this was common practice. "So the bank manager's involved for every party in the transaction. Was that an acceptable position?" Ms Orr asked Mr James agreed that the web of conflicts presented by the case study meant that this was not an acceptable position. He was also asked to explain why the Dutch banking giant ignored a request from the banking regulator APRA to stop relationship managers from performing valuations of properties used as collateral to secure bigger loans years after being told. APRA warned Rabobank of the risk that properties assessed by the relationship manager were being "overvalued intentionally or in error" following a targeted review in The regulator sent the bank a letter on December 2, 2011, asking it to provide details on "procedure changes that now ensure there is sufficient independence between the collateral valuation process and the credit origination function". But Rabobank didn't consider making any changes to the process until The company remained aware of the risks, an internal document highlighting the risk "account managers are inflating values to assist with the provision of credit to their clients", but did not do anything about it until Ms Orr, was not satisfied by the bank's response to shift the responsibility for valuations to a new department and continued to pick holes in process. "So the relationship managers don't conduct the valuations any more? But they remain heavily involved in the valuation process. They do inspections of the property for the joint appraisals. And they can dispute the valuation of the internal appraisal," she confirmed. The interplay between bankers, their incentives and outcomes was also explored in the morning's session, when ANZ's head of lending services Ben Steinberg said members of his team that dealt with troubled loans were not motivated by targets to foreclose on clients. "We actually don't have any measurable financial targets in lending services," Mr Steinberg said. Ms Orr then took Mr Steinberg to a document he wrote in 2015 and presented to the chief risk officer which stated the department's aim was to "churn" the files of troubled agribusiness customers after months. Mr Steinberg did not agree that the benchmark for dealing with troubled loans that he set represented a directive to staff members, but said it was more of an aspiration for the department The AFR View p46

73 Australian Financial Review, Australia Author: Su-Lin Tan Section: Property Article type : News Item Classification : National : 44,635 Page: 36 Printed Size: cm² Market: National Country: Australia ASR: AUD 2,245 Words: 263 Item ID: Page 1 of 1 South Brisbane's Magellan towers future up in the air Su-LinTan The future of industry superannuation fund Hostplus, Singapore-listed Roxy- Pacific Holdings and developer Pindan's South Brisbane apartment development Magellan New World Towers is in question after weak presales of apartments. It is understood just over 150 apartments have been pre-sold since the project -* with a planned 432 apartments - launched in Both local and overseas agents signed on to sell the units at the the launch but said they had not received inquiries for the past two years. Hostplus and Roxy-Pacific acquired two sites at 64 Peel Street and 9 Cordelia Street in South Brisbane from Aria Property Group for $33.6 million in 2015 with plans to put up the two apartment towers with retail, restaurant and office facilities on the ground. Hostplus is represented by private property fund manager ISPT, while Pindan, of Western Australia, is managing the project None of the four parties commented or responded when contacted. It is not clear if the project is still on the cards or if the project's strata registration sunset date for existing buyers has been breached. The slowing and oversupplied apartment market in Brisbane is hurting many developers. Nimble Brisbane developers have converted their projects into commercial projects or put up their development sites for sale. Buyers of Brisbane CBD apartments have also suffered, with resale prices falling more than 20 per cent compared with their original selling prices. Even blue-chip projects like Lendlease's The Green high-rise development was not spared. Two overseas investors have suffered a 27.6 per cent loss on the resale of their 79-squaremetre, off-the-plan apartment