A team of highly educated industry professionals

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From its infancy in September 2003, CWA through its lawyers Nova Legal applied for an AFSL (Australian Financial Services Licence) and the license was granted on 22nd December 2004.

Guy Bower was the “brains” behind the structured products and pricing and along with Arthur Balayannis who was also a formally trained mathematician and a Responsible Manager on the AFSL.

In late 2005 Guy Bower decided to change legal advisers from Nova Legal which was a boutique specialist financial services legal firm that was comprised of former employees of the Sydney Futures Exchange and Australian Stock Exchange. Bower chose Gina Block of Block Legal and Compliance as she has performed a wide variety of senior legal and compliance roles for a number of financial services organisations including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac, Permanent Trustee Company, the former Bankers Trust Australia, BT Funds Management and Merrill Lynch Investment Managers.
Gina has been an active voice on industry issues and in industry forums, holding positions over the years on the AFMA Compliance Committee, the AFMA (Dealer) Accreditation Board, the IFSA Regulatory Affairs Forum, the IFSA Privacy Working Group, the IBSA Financial Markets Regulation Committee, and the SIA Task Force on Financial Risk Management.

The firm prided itself on its internal compliance and risk management processes and was a member of FOS (Financial Ombudsmen Service) and CWA’s head of compliance Peter Dvorak was a banking and financial services industry veteran and had worked previously in numerous senior roles within the sector including BNP Paribas. The firm employed many financial markets veterans including ex Macquarie Bank and Sydney Futures Exchange floor trader Duncan Cruickshank who worked with CWA for 6 years. There were ex Citibank, Macquarie Bank, Broker One, Halifax, JP Morgan, Bain Refco, Deutsche Bank and numerous other financial institution alumni that enjoyed extensive careers within CWA.

A high percentage of the team had undergraduate qualifications in many specialisations including Economics, Business & Finance, Law, Marketing, Commerce, Human Resources, Risk Management and also additional extensive training within the financial services sector through training providers such as PS146,AFMA, Kaplan and many of the team over the years also held post graduate qualifications from some of Australia’s premier universities including UNSW, Sydney, Monash, Charles Sturt, UTS, Melbourne, Bond to name a few.

Guy Bower resigned as director, shareholder and responsible manager in late 2007 to pursue further opportunities in the financial services sector and where he remains to this day as an educator and trader within the derivative markets arena.

Management team

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With the commodity super cycle in a bullish upswing that saw Crude Oil trade at $147.barrel, up from lows of $18. barrel during the 1990’s and with global consumption growing due to the industrialisation of emerging markets, CWA continued to increase its retail offering over 2008 with the release of 6 additional products. During this time the firm had a name change to CWA Global Markets and the company took on new partners in late 2007, who replaced Guy Bower as a managing director and shareholders. The new partners were Michael Hale and Keith Cullen who had worked together at eBet where Keith had been Managing Director and Michael was Chairman. Both saw opportunities to leverage off Hale’s extensive data base of retail clients through his online share trading information websites.

Michael Hale’s background includes Chairman and Managing Director of The Hale Agency, Chairman and CEO of Young & Rubicam Australia, Director of Saatchi and Saatchi London and Foote Cone & Belding UK. He has also been involved with business and strategic planning for major Australia and international companies including British Airways, Unilever, Epson, Toshiba, NRMA and BMW.

In 2009-10 there were 3 Responsible Managers on the AFSL, Robert Napoletano, Christopher Hall & Peter McGuire. Peter McGuire had accepted a purchase of his equity in the firm in August 2010 and formally resigned as a working director and employee of CWA Global Markets in September 2010, to take up the role of “Key-Person” Responsible Manager for FX Global Capital on the 7th September 2010 and he remains in the role. He recently completed further post graduate studies in Risk Management at the University of New South Wales and graduated in August 2012.

Keith Cullen assumed a role of a Managing Director of CWA from October 2007 and recently went on to open Spring Financial Group with fellow CWA partners and employees Chris Kelesis and Stuart McArthur. Together they have assembled a team of highly experienced and motivated executives and managers and support staff to assist clients in achieving their financial and lifestyle goals and Keith is the founder and managing director of Spring FG. He has extensive experience as a corporate executive, general manager and sales & marketing director in financial services, gaming & wagering and media. He also has considerable experience in capital and debt markets and in mergers, acquisitions and asset disposals.

From 2004 – 2006 Keith was Group CEO of WPS Financial Group, a diversified financial services group offering financial planning, investment property, legal, risk management, accounting and mortgage brokerage services in offices across Australia. From 1994 – 2006 he was a founding director and shareholder of eBet Limited (Managing Director, 1994-2004), an ASX-listed technology and gaming company with operations and offices in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. Prior to 1994 Keith held various senior executive positions with Australian Radio Network and Wesgo Communications.

Peter McGuire on CWA Global Markets

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The team at CWA Global Markets in Australia were handpicked to join the company during its start-up phase in 2003 -04 with Peter McGuire and his business partner and fellow director Guy Bower both playing key roles in the firm’s day-to-day operations. Guy who is a successful author and commentator on derivative and financial markets and  along with industry veteran Greg Wrate were the Responsible Managers on the firms AFSL (Australian Financial Services Licence)  issued by the regulator ASIC (Australian Securities and Investment Commission). Greg is an experienced financial markets professional having been actively and continually involved in many aspects of Australian OTC wholesale financial markets for over 30 years. Given his ‘front’ and ‘back’ office experiences, Greg possesses a unique understanding of the risks associated with trading and settling a financial transaction i.e. the full “life cycle” of a wholesale financial transaction. The bulk of his involvement in financial markets was gained at J. P. Morgan Australia where he was employed from 1978 to 1998. During those 20 years, Greg gained considerable experience in the trading of various financial products, managing all aspects of a dealing room for an international investment bank and also in the operational and technology support of those activities. To this day Greg remains a consultant to AFMA (Australian Financial Markets Association).

The firms AFSL allowed them to “make a market in derivatives” for retail and wholesale investors and these were offered each business day on global stock index and commodity markets. As the markets enjoyed a hyper bull market with the commodity super cycle in full swing, the timing and entrance to the market was superb. Guy invited Financial Planning industry veteran Ray Griffin to the board of CWA in 2004 and Ray assumed the role of Non-executive Chairman, shareholder and strategic advisor over the initial 20 months of the business as he was a past Chairman of the Financial Planning Association of Australia and a winner of Money Management magazine’s Australian Financial Planner of the Year Award. In 2003 he served as Chairman of the International Council of Certified Financial Planners, a 20 member country organisation based in the United States and led the international push to establish the global professional body, the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB).

CWA raised $1M working capital by selling 34% of the company to Nicolas Balagiannis a well-known entrepreneur in early 2005 and he became a Non-Executive Director of the company.  Nicolas suggested his nephew Arthur Balayannis join the board of directors as an executive director as he worked as CEO of Reserve Hotels which was the family’s holding company.

Arthur Balayannis was a fellow student with Peter McGuire as both undertook post graduate studies at University of Technology Sydney in 2003-04 whilst completing their Executive MBA.  Arthur and family became angel investors for CWA and were involved in the strategic planning of the business from its inception.

Guy’s diligent management of the companies structured product hedge book allowed CWA to grow its business with commentary on Bloomberg media and other associated trading and investor expo’s over 2005-10 where the company was represented in the media by Toby Hassall, Duncan Cruickshank, Peter McGuire, Rowan Menzies, Warwick Schneller & Guy Bower.