The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has handed down a four-year ban to Gold Coast-based financial adviser Andrew Rankin.
Under the ban, he is prohibited from providing any financial services, controlling an entity that carries on a financial services business, and performing any function involved in the carrying on of a financial services business until August 2029.
ASIC found that Rankin, who was an authorised representative of the now defunct Next Generation Advice from 13 September 2021 to 11 November 2022, failed to act in the best interests of a number of his clients and gave inappropriate advice.
Next Generation Advice is among the advice licensees caught up in the failure of the Shield Master Fund, however, it also has ties to United Global Capital (UGC), which entered into voluntary administration in July 2024 following the Federal Court freezing its assets a month earlier.
UGC director Joel Hewish was subsequently banned for 10 years, which he unsuccessfully appealed.
In October 2024, ASIC cancelled Next Generation Advice’s Australian Financial Services Licence after the Queensland Supreme Court ordered the company be wound up on 23 August 2024.
In cancelling Next Gen’s licence, ASIC required the firm to remain a member of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority until 17 October 2025.
According to the regulator, Rankin recommended clients set up a self-managed super fund (SMSF) and invest most of their retirement savings into the Global Capital Property Fund Limited (GCPF) and the Pivotal Diversified Fund.
In a review of Rankin’s advice, ASIC found he failed to act in the best interests of a number of his clients as he failed to “identify the clients’ objectives and needs by accepting a request to establish a SMSF and rollover their current superannuation into the new SMSF, investing the majority of their capital into GCPF and Pivotal”.
Additionally, he failed to identify the subject matter of advice and conduct a reasonable investigation of the financial products that might meet their needs.
ASIC found it “was not reasonable to conclude the advice Mr Rankin gave was appropriate, had he satisfied the duty to act in the clients’ best interests”, because both GCPV and Pivotal were “speculative, illiquid investments with no historical return data”.
“The advice placed clients in more complex and onerous SMSF environments compared to their previous APRA regulated superannuation funds, and the advice resulted in significant fee increases,” ASIC added.
The regulator also found Rankin’s statements of advice included projections that were misleading and deceptive.
“Clients were referred to Mr Rankin after completing a ‘superannuation health check’ with another authorised representative of Next Generation Advice,” ASIC said.
“ASIC found Mr Rankin reasonably ought to have known there was a conflict of interest and jeopardised client retirement savings by facilitating the transfer of most of their savings from APRA regulated funds to highly speculative and illiquid investments in a more complex and onerous SMSF environment.”
The GCPF was a related property investment company and authorised representative of UGC and was ordered to be wound up in October 2024.
The Pivotal Diversified Fund was an open-ended unlisted registered managed investment scheme that was open to retail investors.
On 5 January 2023, ASIC issued an interim DDO stop order to the fund’s responsible entity, Vasco Responsible Entity Services Limited, which prevented it from dealing in Pivotal’s interests in relation to retail clients, giving a PDS for Pivotal to a retail client, and providing financial product advice to a retail client in relation to an interest in Pivotal.
Australian Funds Management Group – of which UGC’s Joel Hewish was a director – was the investment manager for Pivotal.
In Pivotal’s product disclosure statement from January 2023, which included a letter from Hewish, it detailed that the fund “aims to generate the target return by investing in Global Capital Property Fund Limited, UGC Global Alpha Fund, UGC Platinum Alpha Fund, UGC Private Equity Fund and third-party investments selected by the investment manager”.
It also claimed to invest “at least 80 per cent of its assets in highly liquid investments”, which is in stark contrast to ASIC’s description of the fund as speculative and illiquid.
In Pivotal’s annual report for the year to 30 June 2023, it disclosed a total return since inception of 0.00 per cent – a far cry from the target return of 13 per cent per annum.
ASIC said its investigation into the matters connected to GCPF and the Shield Master Fund is continuing.
The banning order took effect from 14 August 2025, and Rankin has the right to appeal the decision to the Administrative Review Tribunal.
The action also follows ASIC banning four MWL Financial Services advisers in July for a period of between four and eight years.
Pivotal was a fund that had only recently started taking investment capital and deploying it. That’s why it only had a 0.00% return as at 30 June 2023, because it was just starting to deploy capital as a result of the bear market of 2022. As at 30 June 2023, it held just 6% of its portfolio in illiquid assets and 94% in either cash or two share funds with large exposures to some of the world’s most valuable and profitable listed companies. Also, the only mention of the word ‘Speculative’ in the PDS is buried on page 29 when describing the fact that the unit price might ‘fluctuate’.But let’s not allow the truth get in the way of a good story. In fact, from people I know close to the fund, it was up as much as 16% a one point in 2024 before the product was shut down following ASICs investigation.
Interesting and how are the poor souls that invested into this product fairing now? I believe the PDS also stated that there would not be any established secondary market for the sale of units into this investment.
It’s a managed investment scheme, there were monthly redemptions. Read the PDS again.
GCPF was a profitable and solvent investment vehicle with almost $20m or 20% of its NAV in cash at time of freezing orders. The investment only lost money because the freezing orders prevented projects in construction from being finished. Everyone should take a closer look at what happened. Check out the publicly available financials.
I guess those that benefited from it (except the clients of course) are trying to talk up the product in hindsight so they feel absolved from their conduct……
Aren’t you the armchair expert.
The way I see it is this bloke is small player in a massive investment scheme that no one is talking about. It’s so well run that ASIC can’t charge the real people involved so they hang the little guy to show you that they’re doing something. Someone at the top is making millions and this Adviser is left to hang with nothing.
Joel Hewish got 10 years. ASIC cancelled his AFSL, put stop orders on Global Capital, suspended the RE’s for both managers.
it goes much deeper and higher than Jhewish
Hewish probably made Millions mate and I have no doubt it goes much higher than him.
Always the adviser getting bent over and the corporate heads getting away with it and starting again.
Who is running a book on how long until the advisers licensed through Interprac are moved to a different AFSL and Interprac being put into adminstration? Sequoia can then walk away the same as E&P did and leave the rest of us to clean it up.
Can anyone explain the money flow and conflict of interest for the advisers involved in this whole UGC/Shield thing?
So far, I’ve not heard of any adviser recieving conflicted remuneration for their recommendations. Nor have I heard of any corporate connection between the dodgy funds and the advisers’ licensees. Yet there must be some reason why licensees are putting these dodgy funds on their APL, and advisers are giving obviously bad advice in recommending them. What’s the driver?
“was not reasonable to conclude the advice Mr Rankin gave was appropriate, had he satisfied the duty to act in the clients’ best interests”, because both GCPV and Pivotal were “speculative, illiquid investments with no historical return data”.
Explain this one? Why have AFSL’s and approved lists if the Adviser is ultimately responsible?
If you do not know the answer to your question, then give the advice game away.
What an enlightening answer?
Money. Money is the driver, from your pocket into theirs. Crims doing crim things a tale as old as time.
Most of the Advisers employed by United Globlal Capital, were mere employees that stayed just long enough to realise a) what was going on and b) how do I find another job. Blaming individual Advisers, we’ve seen time and time, over and over again, is much much easier than a flawed licensing regime protected by all parties.
I was a UGC employee that stayed well longer than that, as were others. The model was also given the all clear by legal counsel, so you seem to be talking a lot of rubbish. Were you an employee were you? You seem to think you know a lot about it…
I’d be very interested to see what qualifications you have and what your prior experience was.
Didn’t know I needed to explain my lifelong industry background to a keyboard warrior. Why don’t you share yours, you seem to know it all.
So you were one of the people who helped facilitate this? Helped people to loose their entire retirement savings? Is that right? I know exactly how, you guys set this up and for you to say legal signed it off. Well, I question the skills of your legal team, or maybe it’s a legal team called Joel Hewish lol. What you and everyone who worked at UGC did was criminal and I can only hope you get everything you deserve.
I’d expect the CAR is getting a commission and the adviser is getting a bonus. Follow the money.