An adviser who recommended setting up SMSFs for investments into a related property investment company has been banned for six years from providing financial services or being involved in any way in their provision.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) banned Milutin Petrovic after it found he failed key advice obligations when recommending clients invest their retirement savings into financial products related to his licensee, United Global Capital Pty Ltd (UGC).
Specifically, Petrovic advised clients to set up an SMSF and then invest in the Global Capital Property Fund Limited (GCPF), which was a related property investment company that has since gone into liquidation.
ASIC stated Petrovic told clients he was only providing limited advice, while also telling them he was required to act in their best interests and provided comparisons between their existing superannuation funds and the SMSF and GCPF investment that indicated they would be better off by switching to the latter.
“ASIC also found that by purporting to limit the advice in the manner he did, Mr Petrovic provided clients with statements of advice (SOA) that were defective and therefore engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct regarding acting in clients’ best interests and estimates of future return representations of GCPF,” the corporate regulator stated.
As a result of these actions, Petrovic was found to have not acted in his clients’ best interests, not provided advice that was appropriate, not prioritised his clients’ interests ahead of licensee UGC’s interests, made statements that were likely to be misleading and gave defective SOAs.
He was banned from providing financial services, controlling (whether alone or in concert with one or more other entities) an entity that carries on a financial services business and performing any function involved in the carrying on of such a business.
The banning took effect from 15 January 2025 and Petrovic has applied to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) for a review of ASIC’s decision.
The substantive review application before the ART was heard from 30 June to 2 July 2025, but the decision has been reserved.
The action against Petrovic follows a number of other moves by ASIC against UCG and its key personnel, with the Federal Court granting orders in June 2004 to freeze the assets of UGC and GCPF.
UGC entered into voluntary administration on 5 July 2024 and commenced being wound up from 9 August of that year, and court orders were issued for the wind-up and liquidation of GCPF on 3 October 2024.
ASIC also banned UGC director and key person/responsible manager Joel Hewish for 10 years and cancelled UGC’s Australian financial services licence on 3 June 2024.
On 4 August 2025 the ART upheld the regulator’s move to ban Hewish following an appeal, but he can still seek to appeal the tribunal’s decision.
