Vestar spruiker Pip Irwin back on the Shore
By VoV | Vestar | Sunday 7th March 2010Dunedin-based sharebroking and investment company Forsyth Barr opened a North Shore branch at the end of last year with three staff members, including non other than Pip Irwin, one of Vestar’s spruikers.
On 7 October 2009 Forsyth Barr was granted a waiver from the NZX requirement that each broking office be under the full time control of an NZX advisor or an NZX associate advisor. This was to allow Forsyth Barr to open a branch on Auckland’s North Shore and for it to be managed remotely from the Auckland office.
In support of its application Forsyth Barr stated that no back office operational activity will be conducted at the North Shore branch.
The North Shore branch would appear to be little more than a sales office designed to generate broking and investment business from North Shore residents.
Mrs Irwin would seem to have impeccable credentials for this role, having successfully sold millions of dollars of finance company and other investments to investors on behalf of the failed Vestar investment advisory business.
These investors are now rueing their involvement with Vestar and the advice by Mrs Irwin, which has seen most or in some cases all of the finance companies they were invested into falling into receivership or moratorium, devastating their retirement plans.
Tags: Forsyth Barr, Pip Irwin, Vestar
Sunday 7th March 2010 at 11:50 am
Yes well, Cambridge has the same, two investment advisors from Vestar.I do not know if they came with credentials but I suppose if seeking advice from Forsyth Barr in Crambridge I would probably ask what their credentials are.
All I know is that we were screwed of our retirement funds but the reasons were that the advisors were only doing what they were told to do by the main company and had no input to the ‘advising!!!’
In what capacity do these people advise or are they just sales people for the main company and therefore are not in any way culpable?
I think the definition of Financial Advisor is not what we think it is, different dictionary or terminology from the Oxford I am thinking.
Sunday 7th March 2010 at 12:59 pm
Check with these “sales/advisers???” And you will find out that they may all be individual limited liability companies. The next time the poo hits the fan they will be able to walk away. To start advising the next day under a different company.
Sunday 7th March 2010 at 1:16 pm
The more things change, the more they stay the same…………….
Monday 8th March 2010 at 12:47 pm
It amazes me that the likes of Pip Irwin are allowed to be still in the industry by the authorities and the industry itself if they are serious about cleaning up the industry.
This is the person while at Vestar and our Advisor:
- rang me to put money into Bridgecorp, told me the CEO had surrounded himself with a strong management team now and the company was solid when I declined and expressed concern about his previous track record.
- rang me and pushed real hard to put extra funds into Cymbis which I declined. Sang their praises omitting the conflict of interest and real state of Cymbis. They went belly up several weeks later.
- rang me several times to reinvest back into the finance industry “to give confidence to the industry”. This is when the third finance company had gone belly up.We had to give written instuctions to not invest/reinvest into the industry as we felt we were not being listened to.
The likes of Pip Irwin are liable for the advise the gave their customers – they gave it no one else did – in our view.
They should all be prosecuted under the law and struck off.
Tuesday 9th March 2010 at 4:59 am
I just don’t get it either. Our Vestar advisor never asked us, every three months just told us where our money had gone. Loses hundreds of thousands of dollars of our money, no sorry and walks into Forsyth Barr and carries on investing/advising other people and their money.
The clean up is a joke, is insulting and gives us no confidence what so ever in the industry. What has changed or will change. There is not a damned thing we can do about it, it seems. Law abiding, hard working citizens have no rights.
Wednesday 10th March 2010 at 8:51 am
Hi ,
Some months ago I was contacted by Jonathon Davidson ex Christchurch Vestar advisor inviting me to consider investing with Forsyth Barr. I told him where to go!
He had taken the place of Tom Lyall at Vestar.
Tom Lyall suddenly disappeared of the face of the earth.
I wonder where he will pop up next
Wednesday 10th March 2010 at 9:31 am
I hold Pip Irwin personally liable for the thousands of dollars i lost.
Her slick sales pitch single-handed gave them the ability to put 1/3 of my funds into their sinking OPI ship without even asking – all while telling me the importance of diversifying to spread risk!
Then she’s had the cheek to chase me and spam me since to try recruit me under her new employer.
If all you do is ’sell what your told’ – it should be illegal to call yourself an “adviser”