Sequoia announcement unlikely to sway ASIC Shield investigation

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

5 August 2025

ANALYSIS

The move by Sequoia Financial Group, to appoint former Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) commissioner, Danielle Press, as independent chair of an AFSL Governance Committee will have little influence on the regulator’s inquiries relating to the Shield and First Guardian funds.

Apart from the usual ethical conventions which must be followed by ASIC as a Commonwealth Government agency and regulator, the ASIC hierarchy will be conscious of recent parliamentary questioning around the roles adopted by former senior leaders of its sister regulator, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

APRA as recently as November last year found itself defending its governance arrangements around members of its executive who left the regulator and ultimately took up roles within regulated entities.

That defence came amid questioning from NSW Labor Senator, Tony Sheldon, relating to former APRA chair, Wayne Byers, taking up a non-executive director role at Macquarie Bank while former APRA deputy chair, Helen Rowell, had taken up a non-executive director role with Australian Retirement Trust (ART) less than a year after leaving APRA.

Answering Sheldon’s questions, APRA chair, John Lonsdale, said the regulator looked very carefully at conflicts and if it saw a conflict after a member had left or joined a regulated entity, then it would act.

In the case of Press, she has not been an ASIC commissioner since August 2023 and has subsequently been appointed as chair of Insignia Financial Limited Trustees Board, and the Customer Owned Banking Code Compliance Committee as well as taking up non-executive director position at Infrastructure Specialist Asset Management and Income Asset Management.

Her familiarity with governance and regulatory issues is unquestioned.

Announcing the appointment of Press to the Australian Securities Exchange last Friday, Sequoia said the AFSL Governance Committee would “provide premium oversight, enhanced coordination, and reinforce governance excellence across the Group’s three AFSLs  including Interprac.

The announcement by Sequoia comes amid continuing ASIC scrutiny of Sequoia with the company confirming a day earlier confirming to the ASX that it is “cooperating with ASIC which is investigating the failure of the Shield Master Fund and First Guardian Master Fund and their responsible entities”.