Obituaries Australia

One of the founders of the Australian financial planning industry, Mr Paul Terry, was killed in a helicopter accident in Hawaii on July 8.

Mr Terry, 45, was taking his first solo flight when the accident happened. He was reported to have been killed instantly.

Mr Terry was the founder of the financial planning group, the Paul Terry Corporation, which subsequently evolved into the Monitor Money Corporation.

Having built Monitor Money into arguably the most successful financial planning company of the early to mid 1980s, he sold it to the Capita Financial Group for an estimated $52 million in 1987.

Capita was later absorbed into the MLC Life insurance company and a team of Monitor Money executives mounted a management buy-out for the financial planning company, for a rumoured price of just $200,000.

Following the sale of Monitor Money to Capita, Mr Terry retired from the financial planning industry to Albany in West Australia, where he opened an art and car museum (the museum was named after one of Mr Terry's favourite vintage cars, a 1904 Darracq named Genevieve which was valued at $25 million) and a five-star hotel.

Mr Terry had also taken an interest in a company called RPC XLcrete Australia Ltd, which specialised in fabricating lightweight building facades.

The president of the Financial Planning Association of Australia, Mr Bernie Walshe, paid tribute to Mr Terry's contribution to the industry.

"Mr Terry was a visionary and leading light of the financial planning industry and, with others, helped lay the foundation upon which (the industry's) growth has been built," Mr Walshe said.

"He established Monitor Money which, in its heyday, was one of the first financial planning companies to introduce investors to managed funds."

Mr Terry is survived by his wife Joan, and three daughters, Lee, 23, Jill, 20, and Kate, 14, and son Simon, 18.