A psychic who used chakras, incantations, astrology and ‘intuition’ to determine share prices has been cited in the failure of Australian stockbroking firm Burdett Buckeridge Young Limited, it has been revealed.
The firm’s boss, Glenn Rosewall, son of tennis great Ken Rosewall, admitted he took advice on major business decisions including budget estimates and cashflow forecasts from ‘professional intuitive and energy healer’ Nevine Rottinger before the firm went bust in May 2015.
A court hearing examining the company’s failure revealed the firm collapsed owing investors $61 million with liquidator
KPMG accusing the firm of dipping into clients’ money in a bid to claw its way out of financial trouble.
If proven, it could give the liquidator grounds to launch an insolvent trading claim against the firm’s directors relating to the multi-million dollar losses – considered the largest failure of an Australian stockbroking firm since the global financial crisis, website
InternationalAdviser.com reported.
During the court hearing Rottinger, who had had no financial training, used chakras, incantations, astrology and ‘intuition’ to make her predictions.
“We’re made up of electromagnetic energy. We can manipulate that field… to create better outcomes,” Rottinger told KPMG.
“I just get an image in my mind that tells me what a price may be,” she added, conceding that she was ‘not always right’.
The court heard that Rosewell had wanted to try a ‘mind over matter approach’ and sought out Rottinger’s counsel between 2010 and 2014, with the psychic charging NZ$314/AU$300 an hour for two hours of work.
Rottinger also gave advice on shifting energy in the office, calming incantations and the chakras that influenced how he dealt with his workload.
According to former BBY CEO Arun Maharaj, Rosewell had been very secretive during quarterly financial presentations and kept his father and the rest of the board in the dark about his activity with Rottinger.
“Amongst many other things, Glenn wouldn’t share revenue numbers, cost numbers with anyone, it was consistent with his secretive form,” Maharaj told the court.
“Team managers would get budgets but the firm as a whole wouldn’t know how the firm was performing.”
Rosewall was asked why he thought it was a good idea to consult Rottinger on financial problems and not with the board of BBY, to which he said it was a ‘hypothetical’.
“She had a different perspective on things,” he said. “I guess initially I was a little bit sceptical but I was open-minded to taking a meeting.”
He said Rottinger was ‘entitled to an opinion’ but it was not an ‘exact science’ and he was ‘dismissive’ of a lot of her ‘input’.
In a liquidators’ report filed on 9 September, KPMG said about 6,000 of BBY’s 30,000 former clients had potential claims against the firm totalling $61 million, although initial investigations have identified a $23 million shortfall in the money that can be used for client claims,
InternationalAdviser.com reported.
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