Bad luck for Boomer Home Loans’ Scott Phillips, not his only experience of organizational woe

Prior to founding Boomer Home Loans’ parent organization, Smooth Retirement Group, Phillips was, for nine months between February and October 2016, responsible for overseeing compliance and risk management, training and supervision at Neo Financial Solutions Pty Ltd. , based in Perth.

A month before Phillips left Neo, the company had agreed to an enforceable (EU) commitment with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission “following concerns about the adequacy and application of Neo’s risk management and compliance frameworks.” .

To be fair, ASIC’s concerns about Neo’s compliance stemmed from an investigation that ended just before Phillips’ appointment as dealership manager.

However, Neo made a number of changes to its risk management and compliance management frameworks due to the EU.

Or take the former Phillips store to Neo, where he was the WA state manager of StatePlus, the former financial advisor now owned by Aware Super, after he established the group’s Perth office. Phillips had responsibilities that included oversight of planners, file verification and compliance, and financial sustainability.

The Perth office allegedly had nothing to do with the 25,300 StatePlus customers who were charged $50 million in fees, where no service could be identified in return, between 2014 and 2018. There is also no indication that Phillips was involved. in this saga; however, ASIC’s investigation into the matter resulted in the Federal Court fining Aware Super $20 million earlier this year.

Fingers crossed KordaMentha (who were voluntarily appointed) finds nothing on Boomer Home Loans worth moving to ASIC. Two brushes with the regulator are rough; three would be very unlucky.

However, Boomer Home Loans is another exhibit in a growing portfolio of media-savvy startups that exert great energies in marketing before even establishing a sustainable business operation.

In March, Phillips said Boomer Home Loans was reaching a deal with a “big pension fund” to finance debt on its loan book.

Before a deal was done, Boomer had already bombarded morning television, the pages of the financial review, and signed major endorsement deals with the Fremantle Dockers AFL team and Wests Tigers in the NRL for the next two seasons. A playbook straight out of the industry bible: Start-Ups for (and by) Dummies.