Insider 'EF' unmasked

By Nicholas Bryant

Friday 24th November 2000

NOT BARRED: Paul Hyslop

Paul Hyslop has always been good at seeing an opportunity to make some cash.

For about five years he was a member of Bayleys Real Estate's business broking division.

He was also the Arthur Daley character who ran the Manukau Car Fair and Park 'n' Sell Car Mart on weekends, a free-for-all where vendors could casually turn up and sell their vehicles.

"He was always trading something, the sort of bloke who'd buy four or five apartments and sell them on before they'd even been built," a former colleague at Bayleys real estate said.

This week Mr Hyslop also became known as EF, the man who made $40,000 trading on inside information on Fletcher Challenge. The Securities Commission ruled Mr Hyslop, whom it dubbed EF, could not be prosecuted because he received the information third or fourth hand.

Under insider trading law only people with first or second-hand access to information can be found to be insider traders.

Mr Hyslop, a director of Wilson Neill Corporation, tried to stop his name being made public but threw in the towel on Thursday morning and in the High Court at Auckland his name suppression was lifted.

Wilson Neill Corporation is a company fighting hard to shake off a dodgy image from its days before Mr Hyslop joined.

It was once the country's third-largest company, trading in alcohol and seafood, but it managed to leverage itself out of existence.

In 1991 four Wilson Neill Ltd shareholders started insider trading proceedings against the company's directors, in particular Colin Herbert, for selling their stock while telling the Stock Exchange all was well with the company.

After the case went to the Court of Appeal, an out of court settlement was made with the plaintiffs. Wilson Neill Ltd was placed in liquidation soon afterward.

Mr Hyslop is a good friend of Mr Herbert, now a consultant to Wilson Neill Corporation.

Wilson Neill Corporation owns the Cobb & Co restaurant chain and Iguacu restaurant in Parnell, Auckland, and has a stake in wireless communication company Radionet.

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