4 days ago
EXCLUSIVE Victim of First Guardian super fund collapse speaks out on the horror toll of losing her life savings at 39
A gardener who lost $80,000 in the First Guardian Master Fund superannuation scandal has revealed she struggles to sleep at night and has constant headaches as a result of the stress.
Danielle Adams, at 39, can still handle working as a gardening and lawn maintenance labourer in Brisbane and the Gold Coast for a company with local government contracts.
But she shudders at the thought of delaying her retirement and working into old age for another 28 years, until she can get the age pension at 67.
All because she trusted bad financial advice.
'I get to work in my home area and keep the public spaces beautiful. It is a physically demanding job but rewarding,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
'I knew retirement is very far off in the distance for me so I had a future plan where I was hoping to wind down to part time work if my body begins to fail me, however with this blow, winding down will not be possible.'
Her problems began in October 2023 when she had contacted Reilly Financial asking for advice on super after a referral from Super Wise.
'I was not after ridiculous growth, but steady growth and lower fees,' she said.
Rhys Reilly, who ran Reilly Financial, still operates in Perth and was previously associated with Venture Egg, a marketing firm which First Guardian's parent company Falcon Capital had paid millions to aggressively sell its superannuation product.
Ms Adams said she had lost the $80,000 in super she had built up over more than two decades of work, after agreeing to put her savings into First Guardian's growth strategies retirement product, via Diversa's AusPrac platform.
Her account was frozen in March when the Australian Securities and Investments Commission made a Federal Court order to liquidate the assets of First Guardian Master Fund and its parent company Falcon Capital.
'Very stressful time but I have not lost as much as others have. I currently have 80k frozen and lodging all my formal complaints,' she said.
'Thank you for working on getting the word out about the highly deceitful and illegal web of scums that are involved.'
She is one of 6,000 people who have lost their super, as she and her husband Ben pay off a mortgage, with two dogs, five chickens, a blue-tongue lizard and a turtle their only dependents.
'My mental state is taking a toll on my physical state,' she said.
'Sleepless nights, constant headaches, tight neck, sick gut.
'I can only count my blessing that I am dealing with this whilst on a forced closure from work due to it being the slow period.
'The thought of having to perform at work on top of this would be too much.'
Ms Adams and her husband are now reconsidering plans to travel around Australia.
'We always wanted to do the lovely travelling around Australia,' she said.
'We have a mortgage that we are paying off, but since this crap we are more focused on trying to get it paid off as quickly as humanly possible so that when I do have to keep working we won't have a mortgage over our heads.'
A First Guardian Facebook discussion group alleged someone had committed suicide as a result of losing their retirement savings, a claim Daily Mail Australia has been unable to verify.
The loss of her super means she is planning to keep on working, with even plans for a modest retirement looking beyond her reach.
'That was kind of one of the plans we throw up in the air but we never really settled on anything except us both winding down and doing part retirement,' Ms Adams said.
'We knew our super would not be able to support a lavish retirement but we were expecting a retirement.
'I will work now until I can't. Also throwing ideas around for a second income stream. I guess my future looks very busy now.'
The situation is also looking bleak with the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort's chief executive David Berry telling The Australian Financial Review only $300million was likely to be available for those who lost money from First Guardian Master Fund and Shield Master Trust - making up only a third of total losses.
This is despite lost retirement savings of $1billion for both funds.
The non-profit government scheme covers victims of financial misconduct, following a determination from the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
FTI Consulting, the liquidator of First Guardian Master Fund and its parent company Falcon Capital, estimates retirement savers are still owed $446million.
It last week told creditors the fund had paid $40million to a Venture Egg entity, Cornerstone Strategic Management, along with Atlas Marketing and Indigo Group, now all in liquidation, between August 2021 and February 2024.
The creditors' report also revealed Falcon Capital director Simon Selimaj, 63, had spent $548,000 from other people's retirement savings on a Lamborghini Urus SUV.
The fund also sent $242million offshore, making up almost half of the $505million fund.
Director David Anderson had bought a $9million mansion on Melbourne's Yarra River in December 2020, in the upmarket suburb of Hawthorn.
