{"id":399151,"date":"2026-03-23T04:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/399151\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T04:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:22:11","slug":"troubled-interprac-sold-for-50k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/399151\/","title":{"rendered":"Troubled InterPrac sold for $50k"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sequoia has found a buyer to offload its troubled\u00a0InterPrac\u00a0licensee to, collecting just $50,000 in the sale, with its new owner looking to stabilise the sinking firm.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conquest Investment Partners has agreed to\u00a0acquire\u00a0InterPrac\u00a0Financial Planning from Sequoia Financial Group for $50,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On 20 March, the ASX issued a trading halt for Sequoia shares in anticipation of the divestment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The licensee has been reeling for months following the collapse of the Shield and First Guardian Master Funds, with its authorised representatives\u00a0advising around 6,843 clients to\u00a0invest around $677 million of their superannuation into the funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite concerns among the financial advice sector that Sequoia would follow the model of Dixon Advisory and transfer its advisers to a different licensee within the group to avoid liability for client losses, the company has instead opted to sell the business for cents on the dollar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking with\u00a0Money Management\u2019s sister brand,\u00a0ifa,\u00a0chief executive\u00a0Garry\u00a0Crole\u00a0said that the parent company would have to write down a considerable amount on its balance sheet following the completion of the sale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important that Sequoia has taken its medicine by writing off $11 million dollars,\u201d\u00a0Crole\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause\u00a0InterPrac\u00a0is no longer going concern for us, that put us in a position where\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0very difficult\u00a0for us to support the remediation fairly, but someone\u00a0who\u2019s\u00a0got an ongoing business that can support that properly, I think is better. I think\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0important.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At completion of the deal,\u00a0InterPrac\u00a0retains about $7.5 million in cash and liquid investments, alongside a $20 million PI insurance policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Money Management\u00a0understands that there had been other offers from interested parties, with some\u00a0seeking\u00a0to go down the\u00a0phoenixing\u00a0route, however Conquest aims to\u00a0operate\u00a0and stabilise the business, not dismantle it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

InterPrac\u00a0director and head of legal at Sequoia,\u00a0Justin Harding,\u00a0is understood to be moving across as a director of the business.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crole\u00a0added that selling\u00a0InterPrac\u00a0to Conquest was the best option for both shareholders and the impacted clients.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to act in the best interest of the people who have lost their money with Shield and First Guardian, to be honest, because\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0not\u00a0in a position\u00a0to repay them.\u00a0If AFCA\u2019s unfair, it just goes to the CSLR, and\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0limited to $150,000 each,\u201d he told\u00a0ifa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there still needs to be pressure on the platforms to repay the capital that\u00a0haven\u2019t\u00a0already and a fair compensation for the lost interest \u2026 is what I would like to see.\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0like to see them get their money back and hopefully this is a catalyst for some of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this month,\u202fInterPrac\u00a0launched its own legal action against the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA)\u202fover a lack of fairness in its process relating to Shield and First Guardian complaints.\u00a0<\/p>\n

InterPrac\u00a0is facing around 800 complaints so far in relation to the failed funds \u2013 a number that could continue to climb \u2013 and the external dispute resolution body released a\u00a0lead decision for complaints against the firm in February.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re of the belief that members will be best served if all parties can be part of the solution, rather than what AFCA is attempting to do, and that is put everything against the adviser and nothing against any other party, which basically sends everything to the CSLR and is bad for the industry,\u201d\u00a0Crole\u00a0told\u00a0ifa\u00a0at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While it is unclear whether Conquest will continue to pursue the matter,\u00a0Money Management\u00a0understands that Harding was an advocate of the legal action against the\u00a0complaints\u00a0authority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this week,\u00a0it\u00a0had flagged that it was in\u00a0\u201cadvanced discussions\u201d over a potential sale of\u00a0InterPrac.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs previously disclosed, a number of investment platform providers have undertaken reviews of their relationships with AFSLs owned or controlled by Sequoia,\u201d it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing earlier decisions by Macquarie Group and Netwealth Group Limited,\u202fadditional platform providers have indicated that they are reviewing or reconsidering their arrangements\u202fwith certain AFSLs within the Sequoia group.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The growing number of platforms that had placed restrictions on\u00a0InterPrac\u00a0advisers,\u00a0with HUB24 the latest to halt new business, had made\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0operation under Sequoia unsustainable and saw the business bleed advisers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the most recent Wealth Data numbers<\/a>, Sequoia had lost 57 advisers since the start of the year, with that number sitting closer to 80 in the last six months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In November last year, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)\u00a0commenced\u00a0civil penalty proceedings against\u00a0InterPrac, including seeking orders to restrain the licensee from carrying on a financial services business.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In its filing to the Federal Court, the regulator alleged that \u201cthousands of Australians were exposed to poor financial advice and significant risks\u201d from the Shield Master\u00a0Fund and First Guardian Master Fund through \u201ccritical oversight and compliance failures\u201d by\u00a0InterPrac.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sequoia has found a buyer to offload its troubled\u00a0InterPrac\u00a0licensee to, collecting just $50,000 in the sale, with its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[177],"tags":[19835,162316,79,18,49548,19,100643,17,234,235,12299,181351,49549],"class_list":["post-399151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-acquisition","tag-afsl","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-first-guardian","tag-ie","tag-interprac","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-sale","tag-sequoia","tag-shield"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}