Banned financial adviser who told Aussies nearing retirement to invest life savings in First Guardian super likened himself to a personal trainer dealing with 'attitude'

Daily Mail​

6 days ago

A banned financial adviser linked with collapsed super fund First Guardian had likened himself to a personal trainer dealing with 'attitude' when it came to guiding clients.
Joel Hewish, 43, last year had his financial licence cancelled for a decade after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found his Melbourne-based private wealth management company, United Global Capital, had contacted prospective clients and advised them to put their self-managed super fund into highly speculative investments linked to him.
'ASIC banned Mr Hewish having found that he demonstrated a fundamental lack of competence, and a cavalier attitude to his management of UGC and the importance of complying with financial services laws,' the corporate regulator said.
Canberra couple Simon and Annette Luck had relied on UGC's advice to invest in the First Guardian Master Fund, which is now in liquidation leaving 6,000 retirement savers in limbo. The $505million fund had invested almost half its assets overseas.
Mr Hewish, who is still a property developer in Melbourne, had previously likened himself to a personal trainer when asked by My Business Podcast host Rob Verhoeve to describe the perfect client.
'The perfect client for us doesn't really come down to how much money they've got, it comes down to how engaged they are in the process,' he said in this March 2023 interview.
'It comes down to their willingness to engage with their adviser, to go through the process of developing a clear picture of what it is that they want out of the whole process and that they're willing to learn, listen and have the right attitude to taking those adjustments that might need to be made and working with them.'
He argued clients had a 'responsibility to take what we show them' and adopt that advice. Asked if that made him the financial equivalent of a personal trainer, he said: 'It very much is a personal trainer in many respects.'
ASIC last year revoked Mr Hewish's Australian financial services licence and banned him as a financial services representative until June 2034. His UGC company was also placed into liquidation.
Retired Customers officer Simon Luck, 61, in 2012 had engaged UGC to invest his self-managed super fund.
Him and his wife Annette Luck, 56, have now lost $340,000 that had been invested with First Guardian Master Fund, owned by Falcon Capital.
'We're not financial wizards my wife and I - we pay good money to trust these so-called licensed professionals to invest on our behalf,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
'I guess gutted is probably the right word.'
FTI Consulting estimates 6,000 investors, who had their super with First Guardian, stand to conservatively lose $446million with $242million worth of retirement savings invested offshore.
First Guardian Master Fund director David Anderson had bought a $9million mansion at Hawthorn, on Melbourne's Yarra River, in December 2020.
The Canberra-based Lucks are now contemplating selling their house to live in a caravan, and putting off trips to The Netherlands and the UK to visit relatives, losing hope they would ever be able to use their super to pay off their mortgage.
'After having paid thousands upon thousands of dollars for these so-called professionals to manage our fund to be left in this predicament is unbearable,' Mr Luck said in a letter to his federal Labor member Andrew Leigh.
'I did this wisely through licensed financial advisers, for which I paid thousands of dollars a year to manage.
'UGC had invested my wife and I's entire superannuation with a regulated and licensed fund First Guardian, which ASIC have now also placed a freeze on.'
He also expressed his dismay in a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
'I have no doubts that both Mr. David Anderson (Falcon Capital investment) and Mr. Joel James Hewish (director United Global Capital) continue to live a lavish and luxurious lifestyle and would be able to enjoy the fruits of their ill gotten gains and have benefited greatly from tax minimisation strategies available to them, however, my wife and I are not so lucky and will never get to enjoy a stress free retirement thanks to them and the lack of financial protection provided,' he said.
Annette said the regulators had failed to stop the likes of Mr Anderson.
'We are both feeling entirely let down by the lack of "protection" our so called financial regulated system provides and have lost a lot of trust and faith in so called "Australians" and see Mr. David Anderson as no better than an overseas scam agent,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
Hewish's licence was cancelled after ASIC found that UGC had lured people into investing in UGC-related products by cold calling prospective clients and offering them a 'free superannuation health check'.
He appealed his ban to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, after ASIC said he 'created a culture of non-compliance and incompetence at UGC, and cannot be trusted to comply with financial services laws'.
Hewish features as a director on the website of Melbourne-based property developer Hewson. It is linked to Serpells Road Pty Ltd, the developer of a luxury apartment complex at Templestowe in Melbourne's east.
Mr Hewish's X account describes him as a 'professional stock and real estate investor and speculator. Former Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of a multi-disciplined wealth management business'.
It lists his based as New York even though his ASIC file shows him as a director of companies in Melbourne and the Gold Coast. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Hewish for comment.