Disgraced adviser faces up to 10 years jail

A former Perth-based private client adviser will stand trial for stealing more than $3.7 million in client funds while a former authorised representative of IOOF-owned Consultum Financial Advisers has been convicted of 10 offences and ordered to pay back more than $684,000 to affected clients.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s assault on dodgy financial advisers appears to be intensifying with the regulator announcing on Thursday that Todd Michael King, 41, will stand trial in Perth District Court on February 21, 2014, on one count of fraud and four courts of stealing in relation to contracts he entered with two clients to borrow shares and funds as collateral on margin loans for his mother.

King, formerly an authorised representative of Australian Stockbroking & Advisory Services Limited, was permanently banned by ASIC in May 2011. He faces a maximum of seven years jail for each of the stealing charges and a maximum of 10 years jail for the fraud charge.

ASIC also announced that former financial adviser Kevin Maxwell George Whitting, 72, has been ordered by Victoria’s Frankston Magistrates Court to pay back more than $684,000 to affected clients and fined $5,000.

The court convicted the Victorian man of 10 charges of providing inappropriate advice and providing false and misleading statements to clients, in relation to the Blue Diamond Deposits Trust No 1, which was a managed investment scheme that collapsed in 2010.

This followed ASIC’s decision in May 2011 to ban Whitting from providing financial services for four years and suspending Whitting’s licensee, Kedesco. He was also previously licensed by Elite Equities and Consultum Financial Advisers