SVS Securities - shut down?

MarkeR

masonic wrote: »

Have you found the administrators' dedicated page for SVS clients and creditors?

thanks masonic, I hadn't seen that, access to my account for proof would be nice, I do have every email they've sent when one of my limit orders has executed, apart from that I only have my spreadsheet detailing what I've bought and sold and what I currently hold.
I opened my account with them in late 2011 and I've had no problems with them until now, they were low cost and I was quite happy with them.....until today

moneytroll

Or it could be very simple:
SVS have sold all investors' shares, falsified statements, and lent the monies to some dodgy outfit to leverage themselves, who ran away with it...
I hope not. :eek:

masonic wrote: »

The Beaufort administration was rather complex, first there was an international fraud and money laundering investigation that needed to be dealt with, second a significant proportion of the assets under management were invested in unconventional and illiquid assets that proved difficult to dispose of. Presuming SVS is not caught up in similar levels of dodginess, costs could come to significantly less than £67m.

My2penneth

They are required by law to reconcile what's in the pooled accounts daily and report if there are errors and "sort it out".

So, unless jailtime fraud is involved .....then the shares should all be there ( he says). The FCA do audit the book keeping and issue fines for each breach. If there had been many breaches, the FCA would have acted and stopped them from trading a long time ago.

I agree that 5k cost per client would be overkill as SVS is a much smaller problem than Beaufort was... I'm just playing with " what ifs" and hoping they are worse case musings.

The administrator should also track all dividends. Any advice on what happens to dividends.?

moneytroll

One thing I found very annoying about the company were the constant calls to try and enlist me in some 'premium services'. I found the people off putting (cowboy-like behaviour), quite pushy and a bit rude/difficult to shake off.
I would have happily changed and paid more but it's such a hassle to change that I kept putting it off...Also I already have 3 other brokers and not sure there are that many to choose from. Just wish I had less with SVS.

londoninvestor

masonic wrote: »

Presumably this was a non-ORB bond? A mini-bond perhaps? I can't find any public record of it, other than the SVS promotional material, or the fact that it defaulted. How did this not put the company into insolvency long before the events of the past few days?

This is an underappreciated point about minibonds (previously underappreciated by me anyway!). If the bondholders can't efficiently put the company into administration when it defaults, their money is even less secure...

Ravima

Dear XXXXXXXX

As you may be aware the SVS Retail Bond (“the Bond”) in which you are an investor, was due for repayment on 30Th June 2019.

Due to our current financial commitments, we would propose to redeem the bond in 6 equal monthly payments, commencing on 15th August 2019 and thereafter on the 15th of each month until the final payment of 15th January 2020.

Interest to the end of June 2019 has already been paid and interest will continue to accrue on the outstanding amounts at the additional rate of 10.25%. This is 2% above the contracted rate on the Bond and will be paid along with the capital instalment October 2019 and January 2020 respectively.

The additional interest is offered by way of compensation for the slightly delayed payment.
Please do not hesitate to contact Mr James Bushell, Head of Settlements if there is any aspect of this which you wish to discuss further.

Kind regards

SVS Securities plc

to_jackie_too

Reaper wrote: »

They all do. It seems a bit dodgy loaning out shares to those who want to short and therefore drive down the price of the shares held by customers. However the argument goes if they didn't lend them somebody else would and this way they can use the money it generates to keep customer fees low.

This is incorrect. A broker/platform needs explicit permission (in their Terms & Conditions) in order to be allowed to lend out their clients' shares. And I'm not aware of any UK-based platforms which include that in their T&Cs.

The "newish dutch one" presumably refers to DEGIRO. Their T&Cs allow them to lend out clients' shares, unless you choose their "Custody" account (which is more expensive).

masonic

My2penneth wrote: »

The administrator should also track all dividends. Any advice on what happens to dividends.?

Dividends will continue to be received by the administrators and paid into the nominee company's cash account. Depending on how things proceed, these will either be credited to individual investors holding the shares, or form part of the pooled funds from which a distribution is made. If there is a shortfall, they will form part of the funds an investor can reclaim from the FSCS.

masonic

Ravima wrote: »

Dear XXXXXXXX

As you may be aware the SVS Retail Bond (“the Bond”) in which you are an investor, was due for repayment on 30Th June 2019.

Due to our current financial commitments, we would propose to redeem the bond in 6 equal monthly payments, commencing on 15th August 2019 and thereafter on the 15th of each month until the final payment of 15th January 2020.

Interest to the end of June 2019 has already been paid and interest will continue to accrue on the outstanding amounts at the additional rate of 10.25%. This is 2% above the contracted rate on the Bond and will be paid along with the capital instalment October 2019 and January 2020 respectively.

The additional interest is offered by way of compensation for the slightly delayed payment.
Please do not hesitate to contact Mr James Bushell, Head of Settlements if there is any aspect of this which you wish to discuss further.

Kind regards

SVS Securities plc

That's a real shame for bondholders. I don't fancy their prospects of receiving much, if any, of their capital back now. Unlike the platform's investors, there will be no recourse to the FSCS and they will need to register as unsecured creditors of the business.

This just goes to show how right people on this forum are when they tell investors not to touch such mini-bonds with a barge pole due to the 100% loss potential.

My2penneth

In the document from Leonard Curtis it gives one the impression that after they've reconciled what shares are in the pool and taken their fees , they will then return assets.

It seems to me that they could sell our shareholdings at what might be a very inopportune time st the end of September start of October with no deal Brexit on the cards.

It would be better if they transferred shareholdings into another platform say with iWeb or the share centre like they did with Beaufort Securities clients.