SVS Securities - shut down?

johnburman

Good spot masonic!!

But who has heard of "ITI Capital Ltd"?  Sharholders are ITI Group Limited, and owned by about 10 individuals, with 2 large  shareholders being a Mr and Mrs Glover.  The goood (or bad) news is have a look at the accounts on Companuies House, one sees a £5m *loss* in 2017 and  £2m *loss* in 2018; and only 2 directors.  Are we happy with all that?  I am not.
Poor charges and hardly an inspiring balalnce sheet.  Why were they selected one wonders?   

Our discussions on alternatives - and in view of the £85k limit we all should spread our risks - was sensible.  Trading 212, iWeb, and HL (who are expensive) are my choice.

PS. I still have not worked out how Trading 212 can make a profit on XO clients without charging commisison?  It's too good to be true...whcih is really really scary). 

masonic

johnburman said:

But who has heard of "ITI Capital Ltd"?  Sharholders are ITI Group Limited, and owned by about 10 individuals, with 2 large  shareholders being a Mr and Mrs Glover.  The goood (or bad) news is have a look at the accounts on Companuies House, one sees a £5m *loss* in 2017 and  £2m *loss* in 2018; and only 2 directors.  Are we happy with all that?  I am not.
Poor charges and hardly an inspiring balalnce sheet.  Why were they selected one wonders?  

It suggests LC weren't exactly spoilt for choice. Some might have been ruled out for not being able to support some of the racier things some SVS clients were trading. The Share Centre, who has previously snapped up other refugees might not have taken an interest this time, with the ongoing takeover by Interactive Investor. I suspect a good part of it is how desperate a firm is to acquire new customers, and I can certainly see the motivation of ITI in that respect.

It's a no brainer to support the distribution plan, then move on to a more suitable broker at your leisure. Opposing the choice of broker at this stage would ensure investors see out the rest of the year in limbo.

manorhouse

Well i am surprised as ITI is a broker that i have never heard of .
I wonder why it was not mentioned when we discussed alternative "homes" 
I see one of there partners listed is a broker i have expressed an interest in and had in mind for my "home".
I am hoping that will not be problem .
I see masonic and others were able to identify by charges which makes me think there might be others like it out there.
Considering we have discussed only keeping £85 with one that information on all the others might be useful for many .
For what its worth ITI has never come up for me on a broker search.

Thrugelmir

johnburman said:

PS. I still have not worked out how Trading 212 can make a profit on XO clients without charging commisison?  It's too good to be true...whcih is really really scary). 

Far smaller range of investments to choose from. Other services subsidise the free trading. Aggregated trades are bulk dealt at 4pm every day. 

olderbutnowiser

I have never heard of ITI Capital either but I am not surprised that LC have managed to find just about the most unsuitable firm you could imagine for the majority of us XO clients who deal in mainstream stocks. It's obvious that they were having to cater for all the SVS clients on one platform and as these include thousands of Chinese FX traders, all the "safe" and well-known firms decided that they didn't want to know and who can blame them.

Here is ITI's LinkedIn entry. They don't seem to know how many employees they have (51-200) and a strong Russian connection leaves me very uneasy:

About usBrokerage firm for institutional investors and professional clients, offering an in-house developed trading platform which is scalable and stable, enabling clients to confidently process high volumes at ultra low latency. - Providing optimal investment strategies, daily analytics, wide software choice. - Offering low latency DMA solutions and best conditions for automatic trading systems, implementation and development. - High-Touch Sales & Trading - best execution, financing, prime brokerage, individual solutions. - High-level service and individual approach, market rate currency conversion, cash management, market-making service. IndustriesFinancial Services

Company size

51-200 employees

Headquarters

London, London

Type

Privately Held

Founded

2000

Specialties

HFT AND ALGORITHM TRADING SOLUTIONS, DIRECT MARKET ACCESS, Global markets coverage, HNWI CLIENTS, INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS, DMA, Cash and securities borrow & lending, Block trading, Prime Brokerage, Futures and options, Stocks, bonds, depositary receipts and ETFs, Structured products, REPO, Low Latency Market Access, Execution, Emerging Markets, Russia

Locations

• Primary

  Tower 42, 25 Old Broad Street London

  Level 33

  London, London EC2N 1HQ, GB

  Get directions

11 New Street

St. Peter Port, Guernsey GY1 2PF, GG

Get directions

Building 1, 8 Presnenskaya nab., 8th Floor, MFC Capital City, Northern Block

Moscow, Moscow 123317, RU

eskbanker

olderbutnowiser said:

Here is ITI's LinkedIn entry. They don't seem to know how many employees they have (51-200)....

Not a valid conclusion - LinkedIn use a set of standardised company size bandings, as per https://developer.linkedin.com/docs/reference/company-size-codes, so ITI will simply have picked the one that fits them when creating the entry....

Code	Description
A	Self-employed
B	1-10 employees
C	11-50 employees
D	51-200 employees
E	201-500 employees
F	501-1000 employees
G	1001-5000 employees
H	5001-10,000 employees
I	10,001+ employees

Thrugelmir

olderbutnowiser said:

all the "safe" and well-known firms decided that they didn't want to know and who can blame them.

Best to leave the conspiracy theories on Facebook where they belong.  

johnburman

2 responses
Re: ITI Capital.  Ignoring the size issues on Linkedin (sorry I think that this is a non-issue), ITI are small, expensive, ARE LOSS MAKING, with some very odd overseas connections.  Yes they offer a myriad of FS services, all of which are irrelevant for the XO clients.  For the majority of the XO clients they seem completely unsuitable. 
I presume that they were chosen because they can service all the various overseas (mainly Chinese) FX clients of SVS.  But do they have the IT and back office capacity to deal with all we XO clients?  And why the delay in dealing with us from transfer to them to clients in being able to deal?
 
Re: Trading 212.  you say 

(a) Far smaller range of investments to choose from. (b) Other services subsidise the free trading. (c) Aggregated trades are bulk dealt at 4pm every day. 
a) yes, and it is a real pain, but they cover most of the bigger capitalised shares/ETFs, although there is a bit of a gap with UK investment trusts [yes:MYI ; SMT;  no: FCIT; ANY WITAN; SIT etc.  Weird?, no?] .  Why do they they restrict clients this way?

b) may be, but why as an XO client should I care?  And I would hope the FCA is aware of this and is keeping an eye on their liquidity as a result (as one presumes they did not with SVS).

c)  I buy at best and so this does not apply.  And in any event this may be good or bad for me. 

manorhouse

masonic said:

manorhouse said:

With hindsight we know i was better off for moving part of my portfolio from SVS to Degiro .

We don't yet have the hindsight to know whether you were better off. The outcome of the SVS administration is not yet known, and Degiro  (or).

manorhouse said:

( non uk )

Can you comprehend that there is a difference between "non uk" and "non-FSCS protected"? You've effectively branded other posters racists in this thread while failing to understand this important difference.

Come on masonic .. "Degiro is not yet in 'administration" you could say this about any company.
Unless you have some special reason to fear this will happen to them if so please tell.
(  "whatever the Dutch equivalent of administration is" i have no idea might be worse might be better )

Even if you have please concede one was better off at present for switching from SVS to Degiro.

Branded racist is a bit strong , i thought at best rather like the buy British thing that once shops promoted which is fair enough .
I have seen it in Ireland were i noticed more of the people would think about it and chose the produced/made in that country .
I believe in choice and plenty of information a point made over again .
And lets have that choice by having as many choices put up and debated on here.
You have suggested others elsewhere might be more expert and to go away from here , you have shown in identifying this obscure ITI choice that you have much knowledge of many smaller brokers .
How does this site make money ?

masonic

manorhouse said:

masonic said:

manorhouse said:

With hindsight we know i was better off for moving part of my portfolio from SVS to Degiro .

We don't yet have the hindsight to know whether you were better off. The outcome of the SVS administration is not yet known, and Degiro  (or).

manorhouse said:

( non uk )

Can you comprehend that there is a difference between "non uk" and "non-FSCS protected"? You've effectively branded other posters racists in this thread while failing to understand this important difference.

Come on masonic .. "Degiro is not yet in 'administration" you could say this about any company.
Unless you have some special reason to fear this will happen to them if so please tell.
(  "whatever the Dutch equivalent of administration is" i have no idea might be worse might be better )

Even if you have please concede one was better off at present for switching from SVS to Degiro.

You'll only know in the fullness of time if your move to Degiro leaves you better off. The projected outcome for SVS investors is that they will get back all of their investments, thanks to the FSCS stepping in and meeting the costs of the administration. I'm not commenting on the likelihood of any other broker failing, but if Degiro did fail, I have a lot less confidence that UK investors would have the same level of protection, and, ostensibly they may not get back all of their investments.

Any company can fail. When a FSCS protected broker fails, investors are guaranteed to be compensated for their losses up to a maximum of £85,000. This protection has been tested again and again, and has never failed to compensate investors. However, when a non-FSCS protected firm fails, there is protection offered from EEA passporting rules. This has been tested previously and failed to repay UK savers in the Icelandic banking crisis. I'm not aware of any instance where the passport scheme has paid out successfully to UK savers or investors. Another risk is that at the end of this year, EEA passporting rules may abruptly cease to apply.

manorhouse said:

Branded racist is a bit strong , i thought at best rather like the buy British thing that once shops promoted which is fair enough .

I have seen it in Ireland were i noticed more of the people would think about it and chose the produced/made in that country .

It's not about "buying British", it's about investing through a broker with the maximum protection should that broker fail. As you have said, any broker can fail, so FSCS protection is valuable. Foreign brokers can join the FSCS if they are willing to be subject to UK authorisation. Trading212 is essentially a foreign broker with UK authorisation and FSCS protection.

manorhouse said:

You have suggested others elsewhere might be more expert and to go away from here , you have shown in identifying this obscure ITI choice that you have much knowledge of many smaller brokers .

I don't have knowledge of many brokers. I'd never head of ITI until yesterday. I just know how to use Google, and that a complex legal document like a terms of service document will contain phrases unique to that document that can be searched for online.

Anyone considering using a new financial services provider with questions they want answered would do well to seek out people with knowledge and experience of said provider. That knowledge and experience is unlikely to reside within a thread about a completely different financial services provider.

manorhouse said:

How does this site make money ?

If you're referring to MSE, it makes money through affiliate marketing. But the forum doesn't make any money, other than driving a bit of interest in the main site.