A husband and wife close to retirement are now contemplating selling their mortgaged house and living in a caravan after losing $340,000 from the collapsed First Guardian Master Fund.
Canberra couple Simon Luck, 61, and Annette, 56, had been planning to use their super to pay off their house in coming years before visiting relatives in The Netherlands and the UK.
ns can access their super at 60 but now their retirement dreams have been shattered, and could force them to leave the city they love because it’s too expensive.
They are among the 6,000 ns who stand to lose their retirement savings, with First Guardian Master Fund’s directors accused of moving $242million in funds offshore, and splurging on a $9million Melbourne mansion and a $548,000 Lamborghini.
‘Absolutely gutted,’ Mr Luck told Daily Mail . ‘We’ll be able to survive but it just means that all our plans for European travel and all that sort of stuff, we’ll just become homebodies I guess.
‘My wife’s Dutch heritage so we had plans to go to Holland and reunite with her extended family.’
Bookkeeper Annette Luck said the couple, who married in 1993, had initially planned to pay off their house in Canberra’s northern suburbs when she was able to access her super, before travelling around and overseas.
‘We had plans to travel around for two years and then do a tour of Europe then travel through Europe to England where Simon’s family is from, and Scotland and Ireland,’ she said. ‘We would then loved to have spent a year or two in New Zealand travelling around.’
‘Disheartened, dismayed and downright disappointed and let down.’
Simon Luck was last year only able to access $20,000 from his super under the hardship provisions, following a heart attack.
His forced retirement ended his 22-year career as a Customs officer with n Border Force, which followed 23 years in the Royal n Navy.
But Falcon Capital, the parent company of First Guardian Master Fund, then stopped allowing anyone to access the super they were entitled to.
The Lucks, whose 27-year-old son Jarred is still living with them during a cost-of-living crisis, said they were likely to be forced to sell their mortgaged house and feared they would even struggle to afford a small home unit in Canberra.
‘We’re even talking about buying a caravan or a motorhome and living out of that,’ Mr Luck said.
‘We’d love to stay in Canberra but we simply won’t be able to afford to – we love where we are; just can’t afford to stay here now.
‘We’ve live out of the motorhome, we’ll become grey nomads and no fixed abode, I guess; it’s not what we envisaged.’
Annette said the motorhome they had built for their retirement, with a separate $100,000 loan, could end up becoming their primary residence. They had also planned to pay that off through their super.
‘We have had a motorhome built for our intended retirement, however, it spends most of its time in storage for now until we work out how to pay off our mortgage,’ she said.
‘We most likely will now have to downsize earlier than anticipated in order to have enough money to travel around and then decide where we wish to live.
‘We had always anticipated, downsizing upon retirement but now we are not even sure that it will be viable for us to retire in our much loved city of Canberra, we will most likely have to find a smaller regional location in order to live within our means, based wholly on Simon’s pension.
‘Our overseas travel plans will no longer be achievable.’
Simon is particularly angry at First Guardian director David Anderson, who bought a $9million Hawthorn mansion in 2020 on Melbourne’s Yarra River.
‘He’s been spending our money and living a life of luxury no doubt with his $9million apartment on the Yarra,’ he said.
‘It’s got to the point where I just don’t trust anyone anymore. They’re scum.’
Their savings went into First Guardian in 2012, when it was an investment company, following a recommendation from financial advisers at United Global Capital, whose director Joel James Hewish last year had his financial services licence cancelled for a decade.
But Falcon Capital at that point made excuses to stop them from withdrawing their super and switching to another fund.
‘Falcon Capital sent us a letter saying that they were in the midst of a restructure so we thought it was all legit,’ Mr Luck said.
Then there is truck driver Anthony Kenna, 44, who lost $30,830 in super after being contacted in 2023 by Ferris Merhi, who was a director of Venture Egg, encouraging him to put his super into First Guardian Master Fund.
The n Securities and Investments Commission froze Merhi’s assets in February.
‘Well that’s half my super at the present time,’ Mr Kenna told Daily Mail .
More than half of his super was invested in First Guardian and the Shield Master Fund.
They had both received favourable ratings from SQM Research, whose managing director Louis Christopher in March flagged an ‘increasing cautious approach to potential governance issues’ after ASIC sought a Federal Court order to liquidate the assets of First Guardian Master Trust and Falcon Capital.
Mr Kenna, a transport worker from Hillston in western New South Wales, is one of 6,000 super savers who have lost their retirement savings.
FTI Consulting, the liquidator of First Guardian Master Fund, last week revealed a director of its parent company Falcon Capital, Simon Selimaj, had registered a $548,000 Lamborghini Urus SUV using company funds.
Mr Kenna is particularly appalled at this revelation, as someone with little left now in the way of retirement savings.
‘Appalling and disgusting, he said. ‘How they could do this to a lot of people who has worked very hard to put superannuation money away for retirement?’
A 57-year-old white collar professional had planned to take his super at age 60 and go travelling overseas during an early retirement only to lose an undisclosed amount of money invested with First Guardian.
‘I was looking forward to spending some time travelling to places that I wanted to go, spending some time with my partner, my wife of 30 years-plus years seeing the world,’ he told Daily Mail .
‘I’ve also got a couple of kids that I was looking forward to being able to provide for in some way.’
But instead, he will continue working until 67, when he qualifies for the age pension with liquidators FTI Consulting last week revealing at least $446million was still owed to retirement savers.
‘Some people have enough time to fill the hole – in my case I’ve got 10 years; I wish I had 30,’ he said.
His problems started in October 2022 when a financial adviser at Venture Egg he had met only by phone convinced him to consolidate super from three accounts into a First Guardian Master Fund product marketed as a defensive or low-risk option.
‘He spoke to me for not very long; I signed a document saying that he could transfer the existing funds, consolidate them so I could manage them more simply not having multiple different funds,’ he said.
‘I got emails saying, “You need to go into First Guardian, it’s offering much better returns and is a great fund”.’
Unbeknown to him, the First Guardian Master Fund had paid $40million to Venture Egg and now liquated marketing groups Atlas Marketing and Indigo Group to aggressively convince clients to put their money into a First Guardian super product.
This occurred despite the law changing in 2013 banning trailing commissions on new super products, under a system known as the Future of Financial Advice.
A Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry in 2019 also recommended financial advisers must declare if they are not ‘independent, impartial and unbiased’.
The victim said the young financial adviser had revealed no conflict of interest and came across as professional on the phone.
‘I had no reason to doubt anything he was saying,’ he said.
But from the start, no paperwork was sent to him confirming he had switched his super.
‘I thought something was up when nothing arrived in the mail, I had no paper evidence of anything,’ he said.
Another retirement saver from Queensland lost $22,900 after seeking to consolidate two superannuation funds in 2022, but luckily had funds in other accounts.
‘So for me its wait and see what happens. With only five years left until retirement this was not good news at all,’ he told Daily Mail .
His problems started in 2022 when he used n Super Finder, who linked him to Venture Egg and First Guardian without declaring a conflict of interest.
‘I went online and found a company who assisted with this type of thing who then referred me to Venture Egg who I accepted as my new financial advisors,’ he told said.
‘They in turn organised for me to roll my two super funds into Netwealth who is only one of three funds I believe to have invested in First Guardian.
‘Early 2024 all communication from Venture Egg ceased without notification, then a new financial adviser took over my account. I found all of that weird and unsettling.
‘So I feel like I was set up – no doubt like many others.’
First Guardian was offered on super trustee platforms Equity Trustees, Diversa and Netwealth.
Simon Luck has written to his local federal Labor member Andrew Leigh and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
‘I am pleading with anyone in a position to listen to our plight to help me please,’ his letter said.
‘I am not a financial guru by any means but have worked my whole life in national security of as an immigrant (10 pound Pommie) trusting in and its way of life. I am now sitting here in disbelief.’