Paul McIntyre: Dodgy director joins the big time

He's no Alan Bond or Christopher Skase but in Australian business circles Rodney Adler is just as well known and equally dodgy. His late father, Larry Adler, knew Bond and Skase intimately, channeling finances to both men as a lender of last resort.

But on Wednesday in the NSW Supreme Court, Adler joined a host of blemished Australian businessmen when he unexpectedly pleaded guilty to corporate misdemeanours carrying penalties of up to 20 years in jail.

Adler was a glossy Sydney entrepreneurial type whose FAI Insurance group was once worth about A$400 million ($437 million). Last week he was seen trying on a pair of $20 sunglasses outside a chocolate shop.

Adler was a close ally of James Packer until the phone reseller, One.Tel, dubiously collapsed in 2002, taking more than A$900 million of Murdoch and Packer money with it.

Adler was a One.Tel director and it was the grand phone company vision that has tarnished the reputations of the media barons' sons, Lachlan and James. They convinced their fathers to pump hundreds of millions into the Australian venture.

Adler was there as a director during the One.Tel debacle as he was for the $5.3 billion collapse of Australian insurance giant HIH in 2001. And it was here that the authorities finally nailed him.

Now 44, Adler, like his father, has a most colourful past. He took over as chief executive of the FAI Insurance group at 29 when Larry Adler died a year after the stockmarket crash in 1987. Rodney had a huge task reviving his father's empire which he did for a while, although not with the purest techniques.

Outside of FAI, Adler was in business with convicted murderer Phuong Ngo, who is serving a life sentence for killing NSW Labor MP John Newman. And he bankrolled the bailout of the Mekong Club in Sydney where Ngo secretly plotted Newman's murder.

Other business activities include investing in a company that had Australian underworld figure Tom Domican on the payroll - Domican has been charged with murder, attempted murder and five conspiracies to murder but acquitted of them all, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Adler has also been taped on FBI phone taps via his links with New York Mafioso Jeffrey Pokross, who turned informant but fronted as a stockbroker and merchant banker.

There's plenty more of that stuff in the Adler vault but in the end it was his directorship at HIH that skittled him.

This week Adler pleaded guilty to four criminal charges relating to statements he made over extracting money from HIH while a director.

Two were linked to Pacific Eagle Equities, an investment vehicle Adler controlled and persuaded HIH chairman Ray Williams to back with A$10 million of HIH money.

Adler was sitting on A$17 million of HIH stock after HIH acquired FAI in 1998 but by 2000 HIH's share price was sliding.

As a director, Adler could not offload his stock without raising questions, so he sought to illegally shore up the HIH share price by taking HIH money and using Pacific Eagle to buy more stock.

Adler blew A$4 million on that exercise, another A$4 million buying worthless tech stocks at bloated prices and another $2 million went into loans for Adler-controlled businesses.

Adler also pleaded guilty to misleading HIH into putting money into another venture and telling the company he had done likewise. He hadn't.

Despite being a favourite in the gossip and society pages, in the end Adler was just too cocky.

An accidental meeting last weekend at a Bondi Beach cafe between James Packer and Adler says it all about Adler's new status, or lack of it.

The two men shook hands but the body language was as relaxed as a Russian in an ice pond. Adler was particularly keen to escape. Of course, it was only a day or two before he was to surprise everyone and admit he was a crook.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission could be criticised for not pursuing stronger charges, but chairman Jeff Lucy remains unrepentant.

ASIC will make no further allegations against Adler after the four charges are resolved.

Adler will return to court next month for sentencing and while it is likely he will do jail time there are a couple of loopholes.

Whatever the outcome, Rodney Adler has officially joined the ragged reputation elite of Alan Bond and Christopher Skase. Welcome.

* Paul McIntyre is a Sydney journalist