SVS Securities - shut down?

masonic

johnburman said:

Hence their reason to remain anonymous and the 5-6 week delay between transfer and dealing (and why they have the cheek to ask their new clients not to contact them for 5-6 weeks).

Where has it been stated that there will be a 5-6 week delay between transfer and dealing? The transfer is due to commence next week and is expected to be completed in mid-July. My understanding is that once the transfer is complete, clients will be able to access their accounts and trade immediately.

johnburman

My understanding is that once the transfer is complete, clients will be able to access their accounts and trade immediately.
So why the delay between the 11 June and "mid-July"?  Why do ITI say on their website:

We will contact you individually with specific instructions on how to register for an account at ITI in due course. At this stage we are not in possession of your personal information or current holdings and therefore we are not currently in a position to assist you. We expect this to occur around the mid- July timeframe. [my emphasis]

So why the wait until the "mid-July timeframe" ?

bowlhead99

johnburman said:

My understanding is that once the transfer is complete, clients will be able to access their accounts and trade immediately.
So why the delay between the 11 June and "mid-July"?  Why do ITI say on their website:

We will contact you individually with specific instructions on how to register for an account at ITI in due course. At this stage we are not in possession of your personal information or current holdings and therefore we are not currently in a position to assist you. We expect this to occur around the mid- July timeframe. [my emphasis]

So why the wait until the "mid-July timeframe" ?

Because that is the timeframe by which point the incoming transfer will have been dealt with properly and the customer accounts will be all set up and ready to have their assets disposed or new transactions booked against them.

As Thrugelmir said, it is not just a case of click your fingers and Boom! 20,000 new accounts with several hundred thousand underlying positions are ready to go.

johnburman

Hold on.  You say:
As Thrugelmir said, it is not just a case of click your fingers and Boom! 20,000 new accounts with several hundred thousand underlying positions are ready to go.
but what has been going one for the last 10 - or even 3 - months?  We don't know when ITI were selected or on what date there was a contractual obligation for them to purchase (conditional on the court).  But that was the time to get the staff and IT systems online and ready for the "11 June" transfer date for 20,000 accounts, and the far fewer number of clients.
And what do they tell us - don't contact us we will contact you!  At 8.00 am 11 June there will be c15,000 clients wishing to deal/pay ££ out to their bank accounts etc. AND THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO.

masonic

johnburman said:

We will contact you individually with specific instructions on how to register for an account at ITI in due course. At this stage we are not in possession of your personal information or current holdings and therefore we are not currently in a position to assist you. We expect this to occur around the mid- July timeframe. [my emphasis]
So why the wait until the "mid-July timeframe" ?

It's the difference between registering and being greeted with an empty account, then waiting 5-6 weeks for your holdings to appear, vs waiting 5-6 weeks for the transfer to complete and then registering to be greeted with an account containing your holdings. Perhaps it would be preferable to get up and running with a new account before the transfer commences so that customers can invest new money and start trading, but those who are not staying with ITI would be better off doing so at their preferred broker, and could have done so at any time from the moment SVS went into administration. Those registering for a new account and investing new money would not benefit from the fee-matching promise until the transfer had completed, so would be paying the standard ITI trading and custody charges in that interim period. I doubt many people would want to get trading at ITI before their holdings had been transferred.

johnburman said:

but what has been going one for the last 10 - or even 3 - months?  We don't know when ITI were selected or on what date there was a contractual obligation for them to purchase (conditional on the court). But that was the time to get the staff and IT systems online and ready for the "11 June" transfer date for 20,000 accounts, and the far fewer number of clients.

There is a very detailed account of everything that has gone on in the last 10 months of the administration earlier in this thread, and I have copied and pasted it into several previous responses to questions from you on the matter. What's happened in the last 3 months is a distribution plan has been negotiated, approved by the FCA, approved by the Creditors' Committee, approved by the High Court, disclosed to SVS clients, and, following approval, steps have been taken to prepare for the transfer of client assets in accordance with the distribution plan. A final preparatory step, the loading of some client personal information into ITI's systems to allow for the creation of accounts to receive the assets, is scheduled to take place on 11th June. After that date. the transfer of client assets is due to commence, and in line with normal timelines for stock re-registrations between nominees, this is expected to be completed within 5-6 weeks. The 5-6 week timeframe actually seems quite good, given only a couple of months ago it took about 4 weeks for an ISA transfer (cash only) I requested to be completed.

johnburman said:

And what do they tell us - don't contact us we will contact you!  At 8.00 am 11 June there will be c15,000 clients wishing to deal/pay ££ out to their bank accounts etc. AND THEY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO.

I'd imagine among those c15,000 clients, there will be some who can appreciate the difference between a start date and an end date, so will know that their assets are still over at SVS and they cannot "deal/pay ££ out to their bank accounts etc." until the transfer process is completed in mid-July. But perhaps it was wise for ITI to instruct clients not to contact them in case there are many others oblivious to this fact.

BSS

This is my first post so please excuse my lack of knowledge regarding trading platforms. I opened an account with iWeb at the end of last year to give me some access to trading while my SVS account was out of action but, because I have read so much good advice on this BB about not holding all ones eggs in one basket, I do not want to transfer the whole of my SVS account to them. Is it possible to transfer some share to iWeb and the remainder to another platform, or will a transfer out of ITI be an "all or nothing" scenario, i.e. the whole account must go to the new platform? 

masonic

BSS said:

This is my first post so please excuse my lack of knowledge regarding trading platforms. I opened an account with iWeb at the end of last year to give me some access to trading while my SVS account was out of action but, because I have read so much good advice on this BB about not holding all ones eggs in one basket, I do not want to transfer the whole of my SVS account to them. Is it possible to transfer some share to iWeb and the remainder to another platform, or will a transfer out of ITI be an "all or nothing" scenario, i.e. the whole account must go to the new platform? 

iWeb will not accept partial transfers. I do not know if ITI would accept a partial transfer instruction, but presuming the will, if you wish to partially transfer you'd need to find a third platform that accepts partial transfers and complete a partial transfer to them before initiating a full transfer of the residual account to iWeb.

If you are referring to a general investment account then, alternatively, you could sell some of your holdings and move the cash manually to a third platform, then reinvest, but obviously this will incur trading charges and you'll be out of the market for a while. For ISAs the alternatives are even less attractive and would involve going via a cash ISA.

BSS

Thank you Masonic, that is very helpful.

lelamania

desertorchid123 said:

masonic said:

desertorchid123 said:

Is anyone else a holder of any of the corporate finance bond issues? They have been valued at 0 on the client statement which is seemingly primarily because they were delisted last August and therefore no market value can be attributed. However, despite the fact that it has been paying interest, suggestive of an ongoing asset value,  I was wondering what the status of these investments actually was. If, in fact any value now exists in them.....

SVS defaulted on their mini-bonds. It is not expected that at the end of the administration there will be any money with which to make any payment to unsecured creditors, such as the bondholders.

Yes, I have been made aware of the the SVS bonds being worthless. I was just wondering about the other bond investments recommended by SVS. They have been mentioned in previous literature from LC. It seems one of the reasons FCA intervened was due to the risk profile not being accurately portrayed and some dubious loan arrangements made with the bond issuer. Hopefully LC will have some answers.

Hi DesertorChild,

Did you make any progress with understanding this? My dad has only just received his May statement, and we were all in quite a shock to see the size of the losses (we've seen a reduction of about 2/3 to his pension pot!). I tried contacting CorporateFinanceBonds but I am yet to hear back. Additionally, the funds were de-listed on the 6th November, but the last interest payment received was 4th November. Have you had interest payments after this date?
Thanks in advance!

desertorchid123

lelamania said:

desertorchid123 said:

masonic said:

desertorchid123 said:

Is anyone else a holder of any of the corporate finance bond issues? They have been valued at 0 on the client statement which is seemingly primarily because they were delisted last August and therefore no market value can be attributed. However, despite the fact that it has been paying interest, suggestive of an ongoing asset value,  I was wondering what the status of these investments actually was. If, in fact any value now exists in them.....

SVS defaulted on their mini-bonds. It is not expected that at the end of the administration there will be any money with which to make any payment to unsecured creditors, such as the bondholders.

Yes, I have been made aware of the the SVS bonds being worthless. I was just wondering about the other bond investments recommended by SVS. They have been mentioned in previous literature from LC. It seems one of the reasons FCA intervened was due to the risk profile not being accurately portrayed and some dubious loan arrangements made with the bond issuer. Hopefully LC will have some answers.

Hi DesertorChild,

Did you make any progress with understanding this? My dad has only just received his May statement, and we were all in quite a shock to see the size of the losses (we've seen a reduction of about 2/3 to his pension pot!). I tried contacting CorporateFinanceBonds but I am yet to hear back. Additionally, the funds were de-listed on the 6th November, but the last interest payment received was 4th November. Have you had interest payments after this date?
Thanks in advance!

Hi,
No reply from CFB, although I didn't really expect it. There is good and bad news with this IMO, but the investment is clearly at risk. The Good: 1) There have been some interest payments ongoing, although I am not sure if these are up to date, 2) The issuer still exists as an entity, seemingly with assets (according to latest company accounts), 3) These were likely mis-sold so (only possibly) will come under an FCA compensation  The Bad: 1) Clearly these type of bonds where part of the reason for the FCA intervention; risky, opaque and some suspicious interrelationships with SVS. 2) They now cannot be valued as delisted, they have been valued at 0 on the customer accounts (what else does LC know?), 3) Not sure if another broker will know what to do with them. AFAIK there has been no repayments as yet on any of the issuances.

So in summary just holding my breath with these atm.