Ann: FUMA for the period ending 30 June 2019, page-7

Whilst I would like to see the issues resolved with the regulators, we have a new CEO in place, a changing culture, and so long as the business is thriving, then resolving any issues with the regulator shouldn't be hard to achieve."

As a part-owner of this company, I am eagerly waiting to learn from the legal process currently in train, and brought about by APRA, about the scope and magnitude of the wrongdoings the CEO that forced his disengagement, along with the Chair of the company's board of directors as well as several other key executives, from the company - ostensibly due public and media pressure.

Some of the prominent financial media, notably the AFR, was decidedly strident in its running criticism of IOOF during the latter parts of 2018.

Not so much these days, I notice, with some of the recent utterances from the AFR being inordinately less equivocal on this matter.

In fact, the tone of the most recent reference to IOOF in the AFR, on 22 Jule 2019, suggests that the trial is not going too well for APRA.

If this case brought by APRA ends up being being little more than a publicity-seeking beat-up intended to send out a signal that APRA was now "getting tough" (which increasingly looks like being the case), then I trust there will be some sort of compensatory consequences for the executives involved as well as, potentially, for shareholders in IFL who may have sold their shares as a result of APRA's ill-considered actions.

And I assume that, from a materiality standpoint, that there is a significantly larger quantum involved than the mere $4.5m quoted in this media article. Otherwise, for APRA to prosecuting a case involving such a trivial amount (the vast bulk of which would have been returned to IOOF clients, anyway), would reflect an element of gross ineptitude in the allocation of APRA's scarce resources.