Flamboyant Australian stockmarket guru Rene Rivkin dies

SYDNEY - He was once the stockmarket guru for mum and dad investors - the bearded, cigar-smoking, worry-bead twirling Rene Rivkin.

His Rivkin Report, packed with plain-language advice on the best shares - and those to avoid - was favoured by novices out to make a quick buck on the bourse.

But the prominent broker was equally known for his flamboyance, his love of luxury boats and cars, and his large circle of all-male minders.

Rivkin, 61, was found dead yesterday at his elderly mother's Darling Point home. Police said there were no suspicious circumstances.

He had talked previously of ending his own life, and last year was unconscious after a prescription drug overdose, apparently triggered by extreme clinical depression.

"The ending of one's life, which I've thought about a lot, incidentally, because prior to Prozac I was often depressed ... requires a certain amount of bravery which I don't have. I'm not a hero," Rivkin told Andrew Denton previously.

Two years ago, Rivkin seemed to have it all. Ostentatious wealth, friends in high places, the spoils of a fruitful career.

Perhaps too fruitful for some - including the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

In April 2003, the corporate watchdog prosecuted the high-flying broker, and a NSW Supreme Court jury convicted him of insider trading.

Rivkin was found to have bought 50,000 Qantas shares just hours after learning of a potential merger between the national carrier and the struggling Impulse airline.

His lengthy trial was told his actions in buying the stock constituted insider trading under the Companies Act because Rivkin knew the information was not generally available and was likely to affect the price of Qantas shares.

His penalty - a $30,000 fine and the now-famous nine months of weekend detention.

"Going to Silverwater (jail) on periodic detention doesn't worry (me) because I'm like the average person and of course that's presumably the sort of person you meet at Silverwater," he said at the time.

However, previously an apparent picture of health - with media images showing a chain-smoking, robust man enjoying life in the very fast lane - Rivkin almost immediately began to succumb to myriad ailments.

Brain tumours, gall bladder problems, deep vein thrombosis, pneumonia, depression and bipolar disorder were among the list of medical and psychological complaints which were soon to surface.

In a legal bid to avoid spending his weekends behind bars, Rivkin appealed against both his conviction and sentence on 27 grounds, including his poor health.

He argued that his arrogant and erratic behaviour during his trial had been influenced by his as-yet-undiagnosed brain tumours.

Despite now being disgraced as a broker, Rivkin also claimed prison would be harsher for him than others because of his "position in society".

But the argument was rejected in February this year, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal saying he could not have a get-out-of-jail card simply because he felt humiliated.

Rivkin subsequently produced a series of medical certificates outlining his ill health, but the documents ultimately failed to convince authorities he could not be cared for in jail.

Ordered to attend Silverwater on June 7 2003, for his first day of periodic detention, he collapsed dramatically in his cell.

It took seven more months - while he continued to challenge the court's detention orders on medical grounds -- before he was eventually forced to spend his weekends in prison.

However, he spent all weekends in Long Bay hospital, rather than in the general prison population.

The media initially followed his every move, reporting that, for his first weekend of detention, Rivkin consumed only juice, cordial and coffee. When he left jail after his first weekend, he wore a white terry-towelling robe and shuffled into the back of a black Toyota Landcruiser.

Months later, Rivkin's wife Gayle gave an interview to ABC TV's Australian Story.

She revealed how painfully difficult it had been living with her husband, whom she said had become a totally changed man since his brain tumour.

Recently, she said Rivkin had been treated unfairly, in light of his illnesses.

"I believe that the treatment my husband has received from the press and the legal system strongly reflects the general lack of understanding on the subject of brain-related illnesses," she said at the launch of the Australasian Brain Tumour Bank in Sydney.

"As a wife and mother, I implore the media to act more responsibly and treat my husband with some humanity."

Immediately after his conviction, Rivkin stepped down as a director and chairman of the company he founded -- Rivkin Financial Services -- and subsequently sold his stake in the business.

Later, ASIC stripped him of his dealers licence and also permanently banned him from providing any financial services.

Prison authorities had known of Rivkin's depressed state of mind.

They said they had been aware for some time he had been threatening self-harm and, certainly in the early days of his jail time, he had been kept under "15-minute suicide watch".

Rivkin had eight periods of detention to complete when he attempted suicide on Thursday, September 3 -- the day before his regular Friday attendance at the jail.

According to his solicitor, Greg Walsh, Rivkin had been distressed after authorities knocked back an application to convert his remaining jail time into community service.

Mr Walsh said the 61-year-old was also upset about ASIC's permanent ban on his dispensing financial advice.

"I think that's a significant trigger (also). You can imagine someone in that position, his whole raison d'etre of life was being a stockbroker," he said.

Despite the tumultuous final months of his troubled life, Rene Rivkin is not likely to be remembered most for his late-stage brush with the law.

Instead, the enduring images of the sharemarket's most colourful character will be the boats, the cigars and the worry beads.

- AAP