История взлета и падения Родни Адлера и крах HIH Insurance

Australian fraudster

Adler was appointed Chief Executive by the board of FAI after the death of his father in November 1988, at a time when the company was struggling with a number of loan exposures to troubled companies such as Bond Corp and Ariadne in the wake of the October 1987 stock market crash. FAI had largely stabilised by the time the company became the subject of a takeover bid from HIH in September 1998. HIH had done no due diligence on FAI, but bid nevertheless. Total acquisition cost was A$280 million in cash and HIH shares. HIH subsequently sold assets out of FAI including its life insurance company, the St Moritz Hotel in New York and shares in the telecommunications company One. Tel to raise about A$450 million. After the FAI acquisition was completed Adler became a director of HIH in January 1999. HIH was already in trouble as a result of underprovisioning for claims over many years, and it accumulated large losses in the Lloyd's of London insurance market and in the US which eventually brought about its collapse in March 2001. In its final months, as HIH attempted to sell assets to raise much needed cash, it succeeded in selling the FAI business it had acquired less than two years previously into a joint venture with Germany's Allianz Group. HIH and, subsequently the HIH liquidator, raised A$320 million from the sale of the ongoing FAI business. In September 2000 around the time of the announcement of the Allianz joint venture, Adler persuaded the HIH chief executive at the time, Ray Williams, to provide $10 million of HIH's money to allow him to invest and ostensibly make money for HIH. One of the investments Adler made, through a trust called Pacific Eagle Equities, was HIH shares at a time when the HIH share price was falling sharply. The investment was a poor one, as the price continued to fall. Adler resigned as a director of HIH in January 2001. He was subsequently charged, tried and jailed for two and a half years over breaches of his director's duties.

Adler has involved himself in various causes, including helping to promote the "Turn Friday Night into Family Night" initiative of charismatic rabbi Shmuley Boteach, reportedly discussing the initiative with Pope Benedict XVI in May 2010 during the Pope's weekly audience in St Peter's Square. His business interests include short term financing, equity investment, venture capital, property development and financial advice. In 2009 a St Kilda East synagogue, the Sassoon Yehuda Sephardi Centre, conferred naming rights on extensions to the synagogue, entitled the Lyndi and Rodney Adler Sephardi Centre. The estate of a late community member, Albert Yehuda, whose family was already commemorated in the centre's name commenced legal action that ended in the Supreme Court of Victoria. In bringing the case before the courts, the estate claimed that " there is evidence the Adlers are desirous of re establishing themselves in society, particularly Jewish society. [we] consider it to be an affront for his name to be displaced by a name which included that of a notorious convicted criminal". The estate lost its case before the court, but this decision was overturned by the Victorian Court of Appeal. In 2010, Adler was reported to be providing consulting services on ethical business practices. In 2011 it was reported that Adler had made investments in a range of energy and retail assets; while in 2012 it was reported he was associated with a Sydney office property syndicate.