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2000
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1999
No Risk For Thrifty Adler
Illawarra Mercury
Friday March 14, 2003
SEASONED courtroom witness, former HIH Insurance director Rodney Adler, saved money by leaving his lawyers behind as he took the stand at the HIH liquidator's hearing.
Outside the NSW Supreme Court hearing and two months after his first-class Swiss skiing holiday, Mr Adler yesterday told journalists he did not really need a lawyer for a liquidator's examination, so had decided on the ``more economical" option.
It was the first time in at least five court and royal commission appearances that the self-described ``general investor" had foregone his right to legal representation. Dropping references to the HIH royal commission - at which lawyers have claimed he could have broken the law on more than 40 occasions - Mr Adler said FAI Insurance faced an ``armada" of options before it was sold to HIH in late 1998.
As FAI's chief executive officer and biggest shareholder, Mr Adler said he decided against having the company independently valued ahead of the takeover because he did not want to risk finding out its assets were worth less than their $220million stated book value.
The ``ultimate risk", he said, would be that HIH abandoned the takeover.
Mr Adler said he was unaware when he made the decision not to have an independent valuation that investment bank Goldman Sachs had estimated FAI's assets to be over-valued by around $143 million.
© 2003 Illawarra Mercury