ASIC takes aim at property developer for providing personal advice without licence

ASIC has obtained interim orders from the Federal Court to freeze the assets of a company director Sasha Hopkins and two of his companies, The A Team Property Group (A Team) and Sash Investment Holdings

The corporate regulator has alleged that Mr Hopkins and A Team have “been carrying on a financial services business without a licence by providing personal advice to investors”, including advising investors to rollover their superannuation into self-managed super funds and then using that to invest in property developments.

A Team primarily advertised on social media where it was described as “the fastest growing property mentoring company in Australia”.

ASIC have further alleged that Mr Hopkins and A Team, which developed property in Queensland, Victoria, NSW and South Australia, told investors they can expect guaranteed returns from joint venture property developments of 25 to 50 per cent over the life of the development and misused investors’ funds, including converting them into crypto-assets.

Justice Beach has ordered that Mr Hopkins’ and the assets of the two companies be frozen and that they disclose any existing assets to the Court.

A receiver will also be appointed to Mr Hopkins’ cryptocurrency assets. Since late 2014, Mr Hopkins is, or has been, the director of 46 companies. ASIC believes that Mr Hopkins and/or companies associated with Mr Hopkins are carrying on or have carried on as many as 28 property developments,” the regulator said in a statement.

“ASIC believes that at least six of these companies, which were placed into liquidation in 2021, were involved in ten property developments."

ASIC has encouraged anyone who may have invested with A Team, Sasha Investment Holdings or Mr Hopkins to make contact as its investigation continues.

The news comes after ASIC handed the director and responsible manager of Spaceship Capital this week.

In a statement, ASIC said that following an investigation it found that Paul Ernest Dortkamp failed to understand all of the financial services offered by Spaceship under its licence.

In late 2018 and into early 2019, Mr Dortkamp had failed to take the necessary steps in relation to a fault in Spaceship Super Fund’s consumer onboarding system in a timely way.

According to the regulator, this fault resulted in an unknown number of members being assigned to the incorrect superannuation product.

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.