Yeah, the exact code which loads the object is this:
loadobject(93,"y widget.obj")
SetObjectScalePermanent(93,100,100,100)
SetObjectScalePermanent(93,140,140,140)
setobjectrotation(93,180.0,0.0,0.0)
fixobjectpivot(93)
setobjectimage(93,90,0)
SetObjectDepthRange(93,0.0,0.0)
SetObjectCollisionMode(93,0)
So it shouldn't be the pivot. The item is also never scaled or rotated after that, it's purely used as a location marker. I'll try and capture the behaviour in a video, but I'm also going to quickly try giving it a non default shader.
EDIT: That did't work, so not the shader.