The looming FNZ courtroom battle in NZ with a staff-shareholder group has landed a full-page spread in the largest-circulation Quebec newspaper in a Canadian state that houses the firm’s biggest institutional owner.
Former FNZ employee and current shareholder, Mike Stevens, told Le Journal De Montreal that pension scheme, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CPDQ), had played a key role in a series of institutional capital-raisings that diluted staff equity.
In a Google-translated version of the original French article, Stevens said that the “CDPQ orchestrated transactions that stripped us of most, if not all, of the value we created as employee shareholders”.
He told the Quebec tabloid that the staff-shareholder group, understood to represent almost 300 individuals, had been advised by lawyers the institutional owners’ actions were illegal in claims to be heard in the NZ High Court later this year.
“We believe that institutional investors [including CPDQ] have done things that are immoral and, according to our lawyers, illegal,” he told the Quebec tabloid.
CDPQ, which manages C$517 billion of Quebec pension money, owns about 40 per cent of FNZ with other institutional shareholders including compatriot Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Generation Investment Management, Motive Partners and Temasek.
Stevens joined FNZ in 2006 in Wellington as an analyst developer and was one of 19 other executives who tipped in about C$185,000 “each to acquire a 40% stake in the financial services firm” in 2009, Le Journal De Montreal says. He left FNZ in 2019, finishing up a 13-year stint at the now global mega-platform in a client director role, based in Edinburgh.
After quitting FNZ, Stevens remained in Edinburgh as an independent platform consultant.
He told the Quebec paper that the FNZ losses that spurred the recent institutional fund-raises likely followed “decisions by the board of directors to spend recklessly on unnecessary things”.
“For 20 years, FNZ had experienced very successful and extremely rapid growth without needing massive investments,” he said.
The dispute is headed for its first substantial hearing in the NZ High Court in May this year but has met with several preemptory legal challenges along the way including a Cayman Islands sideswipe while FNZ has also sought to have the case stayed here.
In a NZ High Court ruling this January, Justice McHerron allowed four of the 17 current and former FNZ directors named as defendants to be served legal documents via email or at an address drop-off rather than in-person.
For at least two of the defendants, Joel Bernstein and Paul Heyvaert, “it is reasonable to believe that each of them may be avoiding service”, McHerron said in the ruling.
FNZ issued a statement last year, noting: “We are confident that our directors have at all times acted in the best interests of the company, its clients, employees and all stakeholders.
“The investments by FNZ’s institutional shareholders reflect a strong commitment to the company’s long-term growth and success, an outcome that can only be in the best interests of all its stakeholders.”
Last week, FNZ announced several senior executive moves, naming Anthony Habis as group head of North America in a role previously held by Ryan Beach (appointed last September). Habis retains his existing job as FNZ chief commercial officer.
Peter Hiom takes over from Habis as FNZ Asia Pacific group head. Hiom also keeps his current markets group head role. He joined FNZ last September from Motive Partners: Motive is an institutional shareholder in the business that also provided current FNZ chief, Blythe Masters.
Finally, long-serving FNZ marketing and PR executive, Alasdair Munro, has been promoted to chief communication officer.