Spaceship and Tidswell penalised for promotional statements

Spaceship Financial Services and Tidswell Financial Services have each paid $12,600 in penalties following an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) investigation that found the superannuation promoter and trustee made false and misleading claims about their fundamental investment philosophy.

ASIC issued the infringement notices after concerns that the promotional statements made on Spaceship’s website prioritised marketing over accurate disclosure.

The statement read: “We will fight to get you the very best assets in your portfolio … We will measure companies in our portfolio based on their ability to provide defensibility of profits and high levels of product differentiation.”

ASIC said the statements mislead prospective members as 79 per cent of the fund was invested in index-tracking funds, which involved no qualitative analysis of the underlying companies.

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ASIC deputy chair, Peter Kell, said the accurate promotion of superannuation products was critical to enable Australian consumers to make well-informed financial decisions, “particularly in this case given the Spaceship Fund was specifically targeting young investors”.