-
John Banks - Source: ONE News -
Watch Video
-
Related
Auckland's mayor has no plans to resign from the board of a major KiwiSaver scheme despite revelations it boosted its results to portray a false picture of success.
Huljich Wealth Management's founder quit on Thursday and on Friday John Banks finally answered questions about his part in high profile failures at the company.
"No one has questioned my business credentials ever before and I can understand people looking close at me now regarding this. I accept my share of responsibility as a director," Banks says.
Founder Peter Huljich resigned from the company after admitting he dipped into his own pocket to secretly compensate for a bad investment. That boosted the fund's performance and gave Huljich huge bragging rights ahead of competitors.
"He's put money into the business in a way that is really quite reprehensible...you have a board of directors who allegedly knew nothing about it...and that's a very important question as to why they didn't know about it...quite frankly in financial circles it's tantamount to obscene," says Martin Allison from Craigs Investment Partners.
Banks says he and fellow director, former Reserve Bank governor Don Brash, are doing their duty now in cleaning up the mess.
"We're moving forward in the best interests of our 70,000 members," says Banks.
But ONE News reporter Garth Bray says the real question is whether Banks was asking the hard questions a year ago when the scheme's performance seemed too good to be true.
"We asked how we were managing these results and why they were so good. We were given advice from our advisors that the results were good," says Banks.
The buck is supposed to stop with directors but the mayor says he won't be quitting Huljich.
