The widow of flamboyant Sydney stockbroker Rene Rivkin, who killed himself 18 years ago after serving jail time for insider trading, has suddenly died.
Gayle Rivkin stood by her husband during his high-profile fall from grace and leaves behind five children, two of whom followed their father into the family business.
Mrs Rivkin had campaigned for greater research into and understanding of brain tumours, from which her husband suffered, and was aged in her early 70s.
Eldest son Damien confirmed his mother’s death to Daily Mail Australia on Friday afternoon.
‘We are devastated at the loss of our mother Gayle Rivkin,’ he said. ‘She was a loving and devoted mother and grandmother.
‘The family requests privacy at this time and will not be providing further statements.’
Gay e Rivkin, the widow of flamboyant Sydney stockbroker Rene Rivkin who killed himself 18 years ago after serving jail time for insider trading, has died. She is pictured in 2004
Rene Rivkin was the youngest-ever member of the Sydney Stock Exchange and in 1985 was named Business Review Weekly magazine’s Stockbroker of the Year.
He gained nationwide fame beyond financial circles after establishing the Rivkin Report, a newsletter providing stock tips and other investment advice, and was often photographed chomping on a cigar.
Rivkin was a household name through the 1990s, making regular media appearances and mixing with leading political and business figures, before a spectacular downfall.
Fame did not bring out the best side of Rivkin, whose public lifestyle seemed to revolve around flash cars, fast boats and a coterie of hangers-on, many of them handsome young men and models.
‘Some of his friendships in the ’90s were completely different from his friendships in the ’80s,’ Gayle Rivkin once said. ‘He discovered a bunch of playmates.’
Rivkin was first embroiled in a major controversy after a printing plant called Offset Alpine, of which Rivkin was chairman and chief investor, was destroyed by fire in 1993, resulting in a $53million insurance payout.
Rene Rivkin was a household name through the 1990s, making regular media appearances and mixing with leading political and business figures, before a spectacular downfall
Caroline Byrne, the model girlfriend of Rivkin’s chauffeur Gordon Wood, was found dead at the bottom of The Gap in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in June 1995.
Wood was found guilty of Byrne’s murder in November 2008 and spent more than three years in prison before his conviction was overturned in February 2012.
In April 2003, Rivkin was found guilty of insider trading by purchasing Qantas shares based on market-sensitive information the carrier was to mere with Impulse Airlines.
Rivkin was sentenced to nine months’ periodic detention, but collapsed in his cell after just one day. He underwent brain surgery and resumed his sentence in 2004.
Gayle Rivkin featured in an episode of Australian Story in July that year in which she spoke of how her husband had become difficult to live with after finding celebrity and wealth.
‘He became definitely narcissistic,’ she told the program. ‘Extremely selfish, and he could be quite cruel… he just didn’t care about us like he used to. I think I felt quite unloved.’
Mrs Rivkin said she had felt relief every Friday afternoon knowing her husband would be away from the family and in custody for the next two days.
The couple’s four sons – Damien, twins Dion and Shannon, and Jordan – and daughter Tara featured prominently in the episode but their father refused to appear on camera.
In August that year while her husband was still undergoing periodic detention Gayle helped launch the Australasian Brain Tumour Bank at Royal North Shore Hospital.
Rivkin first underwent surgery on a brain tumour in 1987 and suffered increasingly serious symptoms of frontal lobe syndrome after having a golf-ball size growth cut out in 2003.
‘His is a complicated scenario, as we do not know if it was his frontal lobe syndrome or his bi-polar disorder that caused his behavioural problems,’ his wife said at the tumour bank’s launch.
‘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.’
Gayle Rivkin is pictured with daughter Tara and Rene Rivkin’s insider trading trial in 2003
Upon his release Rivkin continued to display erratic behaviour and undertook treatment for his bipolar disorder. He spoke publicly of contemplating suicide.
After his first attempt at suicide Rivkin moved from the family’s Point Piper resident to his mother’s Darling Point home where in May 2005 he took his own life.
The 60-year-old’s funeral was attended by about 300 mourners including former Labor senator Graham Richardson, radio star Alan Jones, fashion designer Peter Morrissey and convicted drug trafficker Simon Main.
Son Dion, who is now director of dealing at the Rivkin Report, told mourners at Eastern Suburbs Crematorium: ‘I’m not sad for him because he’s finally found peace.’
The family had requested that instead of sending flowers, donations be made to the Black Dog Institute which supports research into depression.
Shannon Rivkin is chairman and chief investment officer at Rivkin Private Wealth, Damien and Jordan are clinical psychologists and sister Tara is an English teacher.
LIFELINE: 13 11 14.
Rene and Gayle Rivkin are pictured with their four sons in 1986, the year after Business Review Weekly magazine named the investment guru Stockbroker of the Year
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