Magnus Heystek, the finance guru, has been dismissed after five years as finance columnist for the Personal Finance section of the Independent Group’s Saturday Star.
Personal Finance editor Bruce Cameron said that the decision was taken to give other finance investors an opportunity to write. “In line with tighter newspapers and the fact that Magnus Heystek is a financial adviser it was unfair to profile only one person in the profession and the opportunity should be given to others to express views in personal finance,” he says.
Heystek worked as a freelancer for Independent.
Heystek criticised an “unnamed” large private client management company in his column in November last year. The company was Citadel, which bought his business in 1998 only for him to leave a few months later to establish his own financial advisory firm, Magnus Heystek International.
He also has a 3% shareholding of Citadel. Coincidentally, at the time of publication Citadel had taken legal action against their wealth manager, Kim Frost, who is Heystek’s girlfriend, for trying to enforce a temporary restraint of trade agreement.
Frost had made it clear she was going to work for her sweetheart but at the end of the action only two months’ restraint of trade was granted. A Citadel representative says Heystek left on amicable terms. Cameron declined to comment on this issue.