ASIC cites Shield as part of ‘industrial scale model’

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor and Publisher

28 February 2025

’The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has exampled the Shield Master Trust issues as being indicative of “industrial scale models” the regulator is seeing with respect to misconduct around SMSF establishment and property investment.

Just hours after announcing the freezing of assets for two people involved in the Shield Master Trust investigation, ASIC chair, Joe Longo and deputy chair, Sarah Court told Senate Estimates that the Shield Master Trust issue is not the only matter being investigated.

Longo described the Shield Master Trust matter as “very serious” involving large amounts of money and “ordinary Australians being talked into something that really oughtn’t to have occurred.”

“It really is misconduct,” he said.

Court explained that the Shield Master Trust is a registered Managed Investment Scheme (MIS) with Keystone Asset Management as the responsible entity and that ASIC has “extensive concerns about significant superannuation monies being invested into that scheme” and possible mishandling of that money.

She said ASIC’s actions have been extensive around the entities and individuals associated with the scheme.

“We have taken multiple court actions to protect investor funds, we’ve frozen assets, imposed travel restraints, we’ve had receivers and managers appointed – we are at the early stage of what is an extensive investigation,” Court said.

“The kind of figures we are concerned about here are in the order of $480 million of investor funds and 5,800 investors potentially impacted.”

“It’s a major issue and unfortunately it is not the only matter like this we have on our books at the moment,” Court said.

“We’ve been very keen to get out messages to say to potential investors about their superannuation funds ‘be very cautious about transferring your superannuation funds into an SMSF for the purposes of unrealistic property investment returns’.”

“These are industrial scale models that we are seeing,” Court said.