Tuesday 16th of September 2008

The Commerce Commission enquiry into Donal Curtin’s appointment as deputy chairman is nothing but a classic case of arse covering. The whole thing raises some big questions and hopefully Hugh Rennie QC will give the commission and the minister’s office a kick in the butt over the affair. Curtin’s background has always been transparent. Before he was appointed to the position of deputy chair, all that someone had to do was sit down at a computer and a) google his name, and b) go to the Companies Office and do a director search. It would take less than five minutes and all the information would be there. I am certain this was never done by the minister’s office and if the commission didn’t do it what does it say about its powers of investigation? I’ve known Donal for sometime now, many years in fact, and he is a straight up guy. He has written an economics column for ASSET magazine since it started and was used one year as a judge in the Financial Planner of the Year Awards. The bit I don’t understand is what his role was as head of the investment committee at Vestar. Clearly Vestar had a knack of picking, with a high degree of accuracy, all the dud finance companies. I’ve, for a long time, had a suspicion this was done outside of the committee, and was very much based around whether Vestar could squeeze extra commission out of a company for its support. I know that it approached some finance companies and asked for a special rate for bulk business – or some other cute expression. If the company said no, then clients weren't put into the company’s debentures even though that company had a rating from an international agency. This sort of practice is something which appears to be part of the Vestar model. When the company was called Northplan it did a similar thing years ago with property syndicated, especially from managers like Waltus. It brings me to the question was Curtin involved in this finance company area with Vestar? My view is no. But as head of the investment committee he would have seen what finance companies were used and that should have set off alarms. As for the commission appointment it would be useful to see a timeline of when he took on various roles as he had been at the commission for many years.