No apology for Mac gaffe

Macquarie Wrap has been forced to put up funds to repurchase a client’s share portfolio after Macquarie Margin Lending activated a forced sale despite the client not being in a margin call situation.

Money Management spoke to a financial planner whose client was informed by Macquarie Margin Lending that she was facing a margin call. The client rectified the situation, but not until a day after the required date.

Some two weeks later, Macquarie Margin Lending put in a request for a forced sale, despite the fact the client was no longer in a margin call situation. Disregarding communication with the financial planner about the matter and repeated requests not to enforce the sale when the situation had already been rectified, the Macquarie representative informed the planner that the sale would nonetheless take place, as it was “procedure”.

As a result, the client’s share portfolio was sold down.

While Macquarie Wrap has since admitted to the planner that the sale was a mistake, there has been no recognition from Macquarie Margin Lending of any fault.

Despite the error not being Macquarie Wrap’s, it has committed to buy the share portfolio back for the client to ensure they aren’t left in a negative position.

While the planner involved is confident Macquarie Wrap will rectify the situation on the client’s behalf, there has been a significant time cost for the planner — not to mention the client’s obvious distress while the situation was sorted out.

The planner said Macquarie Wrap is now in the process of buying the shares back, but Margin Lending would not apologise for the time the planner had spent working on ensuring the client’s shares were not lost.

When contacted about the matter, Macquarie would only state that “providing a high level of service and support to [advisers and personal investors] is of the upmost importance to us”, and that in the event of an error, “we would work closely with the client to ensure their position was restored immediately”.