Ann: IOOF response to APRA notice and action, page-64

Before today's bombshell, the issue of what the business might look like in 12 or 24 months was already subject of conjecture and uncertainty in the eyes of the market.

I don't think this announcement changes all that much in that regard.

But what is distinctly very material in this announcement is that key executives of the business are now being deemed to be unfit to run a business of this nature.

The thing I find extraordinary is that it appears - both from this announcement and indeed from the ground covered in the Royal Commission - that the issues of which IOOF was negligent, date back several years.

So it begs the logical question:

Why have the regulatory authorities only now taken this particular course of action when for years these unfit persons were permitted to ply their trade?

A lot of people ... customers, employees, suppliers, employees, shareholders will reasonably have taken at face value the fact that these executives have held office for such a long period, with APRA's permission.

With the implication that APRA until now deemed them to, in fact, be adequately qualified to do their jobs.

I came to own IOOF shares in 2008, when the company acquired shares I had in Australian Wealth Management.

For a decade I have operated on the basis of, well, there are rules and regulations and given that no one who presides over this kind of thing from a position of authority has - until now - told me that the guys who were running my business were, in fact, over that time period actually in breach of those rules and regulations.

So I - and I'm sure most people - reasonably assume they weren't acting from a position of breach.

I hate to come across as one of those people who look for blame everywhere but in themselves (because I believe I have made some fundamental analytical errors here), but the regulators exist for a purpose.

And if the purpose that they exist is being summarily bypassed, then what other official endorsement is there about plenty of other things going on in the world that is, in fact, totally deficient endorsement.

I suspect the lawyers on many sides are going to have a field day out of this one.