Shine Lawyers has indicated it is evaluating the nature of advice given by Dixon Advisory during the last eight years, calling for past and present clients to come forward.
The firm is looking at the nature of advice given, judging whether it was suitable for clients’ needs and accounting for their entire financial circumstances, as well as examining recommendations from advisers to invest in Evans Dixon Group conceived and promoted products and investments.
Shine is querying how conflicts of interest were addressed in advisers’ suggestions to invest in the parent company’s products.
The investigation comes after Evans Dixon recently restructured its management, with chief executive Alan Dixon dropping his role to instead focus on salvaging the company’s troubled US property fund.
The company is currently on the hunt for a new boss, with executive chairman David Evans serving as a temporary replacement.
The US Masters Residential Property Fund (URF) told shareholders earlier this month it would cut its dividends from 5 cents to 1 cent as well as take to selling the property portfolio to pay off its debts.
The fund’s share price has plunged by 56 per cent in the last year, now sitting at 89 cents.
The URF has come under scrutiny from within the financial advice space, including Jim Stackpool from Certainty Advice Group, who warned advisers that the law fails to protect consumer from vertically integrated business models such as Evans Dixon’s, saying “the fact there’s a conflict of interest is irrelevant under law”.
Parent company Evans Dixon has additionally lost around 65 per cent of its value since listing on the ASX last year, with share prices dropping from $2.50 in May 2018 to its current 86 cents.
The group was formed by a merger of Dixon Advisory and Evan & Partners in 2017, now looking over $6.7 billion of assets in fund management.
In wealth advice, Evans Dixon has reported servicing more than 9,000 clients and representing over $20 billion in funds under advice.
Bomber Thompson said it was about time for Evans to stand up and be a leader regarding the supplements scandal. He gonna run and hide again?
where is the white knight to save them
[b]Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden egg…[/b][b][/b]
Didn’t this Evans Dixon mob work from a good pipeline of prospective clients which are mostly government employees on defined benefit schemes?
Now as clients they can very comfortably keep their DB scheme, and then be in a most healthy cashflow position as they hit their 50’s and 60’s for the next 30 years. A bit of patience and these are ideal clients.
It takes a to blow up this kind of business opportunity.
Chickens & roost. This mob were notorious for saying for decades every adviser BUT them had a conflict-dirty, nasty commissions. Then I found the in-house riskie was paid by commissions. Then all those recommendations for Trio Capital. Not to mention SMSFs for every family. Bah humbug!
The vultures are circling, but not a peep from our beloved regulator. Too busy organising tickets and flight upgrades for Wimbledon no doubt.
Doesn’t everyone want and deserve an SMSF?