Oh ... so FCA decided in 2015 that Aviva Investors Global Svcs Ltd peeps were crooks!

agarnett

GarthThomas wrote: »

It sounds as though you may be better off staying away from financial companies with your investments and pensions. It's easy enough to do, you take your wages and put the spare in a box, or set up your own company with it.

I don't take that route, as I don't agree with your outlook, I'm a busy worker, and am happy to let others rebalance my holdings for me, and know that the FCA does a pretty good job (I'm subject to them, so am well aware of what they do) but if you aren't happy with them then it's better to step away from financial services entirely and take care of your money yourself.

Yes you fit nicely into one of the two classic types I mentioned, Garth. Work hard, keep your head down, don't get caught crossing any obvious FCA boundaries in your area within their jurisdiction - not alone anyway, and above all make money - oh sorry - I meant garner wealth, didn't I?

It's funny, I always thought real wealth was created from original ideas and creating and making things. Strange thing is that so many of us, especially in UK, find ourselves working in financial services. It's not exactly normal, and it's actually a rather narrow area within which to demonstrate creativity. In it, there's your money, and there's other people's money. The trick is making yours grow, and those on the same team perhaps, isn't it? At whose expense, though ? What do they get in return for your 'services' other than a reduced balance? Reduced risk perhaps? Or something less well bounded?

I do not advocate putting cash in a box under your bed. I do advocate putting scapegoated crooks and their slippery bosses in jail.

And above all I advocate transparency - not just in financial services companies themselves but in the regulation of them. Currently FCA are not much better than bent cops raking off a take. Where do the fines go? To pay for their awayday shindigs for FCA staff?

Why in that FCA case report is there not at least a list of names of those eight affected funds and an indication of the numbers of investors affected in each, and a breakdown of the £132M apparently compensated and when and by what means?

Why does eightfoot2 have to come here and ask US if the Hamilton Life funds were among those affected?

agarnett

Just read last night how piffling the FCA fine was against one of the traders involved in the Cherry Picking fraud.

In a period where a crook named Miah from Luton, a trader who said he was trying to enhance his reputation as some kind of trading golden boy so he could land himself "Fund Manager" title (and remuneration no doubt), was fined £140K which was £200K with a 30% discount ... :mad:

During the 22 month period where he was regularly cooking the books he received over £800K in remuneration. That's during a typical period where a bank cashier might have expected to receive £30K.

He'd been working at Aviva since 2001, so no doubt was completely imbued with the culture that the head honchos there inculcate in their staff i.e. "getting away with it", plus I bet he is in the Aviva Staff Pensions Scheme which my Aviva WP Pension regularly props up.

The fine was thought to be a suitable deterrent by FCA. FCA are laughable. So where can I visit and see him and his bosses, all line up nicely deterred and totally remorseful, hanging by their b¤lls and/or unspeakables on a string then?

And where do I read that his pension is annulled and an appropriate pension Transfer Value has been refunded to the inherited estate in my With Profit fund?

And I found the report of his fine on fca.org.uk covering his 22 months of continuous daily fraud, but we know that the system was exploited over a much longer period, maybe 2005 to 2013 so where are the other reports of individual misdemeanours? Or was Miah just being eased out anyway and this was the cheapest way for Aviva to do it - make him a scapegoat and then cook the books in 8 unnamed Aviva funds some more and tell the little people that the money has all been put back?

I am sorry to say, I have seen exactly that before in the City. The real big crooks get away scot free, don't they, ex-pat scot?

GarthThomas

It's a bit hard to follow your postings, as you do ramble a bit (are you getting on in life?), but your point about wealth coming from creating and making things is a bit silly. Wayne Rooney doesn't create or make anything, top surgeons, formula 1 drivers, or in-demand plumbers don't create or make either.

It's similar with me; I get paid for selling services that my clients want. They have complex needs (they are major corporations), and have risks that they have no interest in retaining.

For example, utilities who are allowed to raise their prices in line with inflation. They have no business being exposed to the vagaries of inflation linked bond yields, so come to me for a hedge. I can then aggregate this risk and sell it on in a bit of a different format to insurance companies who have sold inflation linked annuities. The business is valuable to both sides, so each will pay me a hundredth of a percent per year or so, which adds up to nine or ten figures a year in profit. I bet given a smallish share of that.

agarnett

So! you are a wheeler and dealer in hedge fund ideas? Do you often ramble round your own hedges too? Or tear them down and rip them up as fast as dreaming them up and planting them, so the traces are difficult to follow?

You say your clients have complex needs and risks they have no interest in retaining. What you really mean is that they want their cake, our cake and to be able to scoff the lot too, and you help them get away with it risk free and scot free.

Wonderful. We get all sorts on MSE don't we, and yes, I am getting on in life nicely thanks. My life isn't based on money or what I did last week, it is based on what I do and what my friends and family do. And we don't screw little people because our maths skills are greater than their's or because we know a bunch of corporate crooks who can bleed little people dry. And I suppose on the day Pippa rear of the year Middleton gets married, we don't get to say our future brother-in-law is a future king?

In the case that is reported by this thread, it was hedge funds that were being favoured over ordinary investors funds that created the crooked opportunity that Miah and others were exploiting. It was hedge fund and associated wizardry that was largely responsible for the financial crisis in 2008, where even fledgling hedge fund managers just out of short trousers (probably like you) couldn't believe their luck at being handed large 6 figure bonuses one minute - "emerging markets" I recall was one label put on the areas of activity that had been raining money for hedge fund peeps - but then they were themselves running around like blue-Rssd fly-ridden headless chickens trying to find safe government backed FSCS bank accounts in normal retail markets, using FSCS guarantees set up for ordinary people not set up for you, in which to stuff their shares of the swag and wait it out while they worked out how they should spend such disgusting sums of money for just hacking the main system.


So tell us Garth Thomas - those hedge funds that benefited from the crooked deals at our expense? £132 million was it, supposedly? Is that with or without the sort of leverage your deals can apply disproportionately to any market you fancy given a bit of major corporate support? Did people like you who skim massive bonuses fund the shortfalls in the investor funds that lost the calculated £132M? Or was that all lost in the sands of time by just planting a few more hedges based on insider information on what would happen when FCA announced they were fining Aviva?

Your gall in coming here to this thread in particular and bragging about how you set out to cream off hundreds of thousands and more of our money (because it is more often ours not your clients) sickens me.