SVS Securities - shut down?

Thrugelmir

Sheris said:

Silly_Donkey said:

On the fraud topic, is it true that SVS has been cleared of fraud? They seem to have been involved in some very dodgy sales of Carbon Credits alongside Deutsche Bank which was part of a major European fraud at the time, and it's possible that there is still an ongoing court case. I don't know the outcome, and SVS say they were innocent parties, but you might like to read this (the part SVS played comes in about halfway down):
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-05-07/how-major-banks-turned-a-blind-eye-to-the-theft-of-billions-of-pounds-of-public-money
I think that it's possible they ended up with a hefty fine for not doing due diligence, which maybe also brought them closer to the deeper attentions of the FCA.  
My understanding is that the FCA eventually stopped SVS from doing new business after finding that it had very questionable commission arrangements for promoting high-risk bonds to retail investors who didn't know what they were getting led into, and who certainly were not wanting to be taking such risks, and lastly SVS could also not explain how it valued illiquid assets. There are various articles out there on the web if you dig a little which show what they were doing with those investments. Here's an excerpt of one:
"But for three of its model portfolios, SVS chose an investment that eventually made up more than half the assets in each of them: Ireland-listed bonds issued by a company called Corporate Finance Bonds Ltd (CFBL).
Owned by a self-styled “insight architect”, CFBL had only two employees in its 2018 financial year, one of whom was the owner Stuart Anderson. CFBL’s bonds were designed to fund secured loans to small and medium-sized companies, but according to the FCA, SVS had little detail on what those loans were or even if they were to affiliates of CFBL.

Rather than cut the exposure of the model portfolios to the bonds after the FCA’s 2018 intervention, SVS instead increased it. Demetrios Christos Hadjigeorgiou, SVS’s boss, told the FCA he thought the bonds were some of the strongest performing parts of the model portfolios. The watchdog was not convinced. In official parlance, the FCA “does not consider this assessment to be supported by evidence. What the FCA did find was evidence of some racy fees, commissions and charges. Customers who did a pensions transfer or switch could find their investment pot depleted by more than a fifth in the process."

Hi,
Good bit of homework from yourself, yes the FCA stopped SVS from carring on business and they forced them into administration.   

Administration is the result of being insolvent. There's no option. Not a question of being "forced". 

My2penneth

I'd start with filling in the reviews section on the ITI Crapital website. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=iti+capital&oq=iti&aqs=chrome.1.69i59l2j69i57j0j69i60.1609j0j8&client=tablet-android-samsung-nf-rev1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#lkt=LocalPoiReviews&trex=m_t:lcl_akp,rc_f:nav,rc_ludocids:8453499568271552233,rc_q:ITI%20Capital,ru_

Sheris

Then why did the FCA in 2018 let them contiune Thrugelmir ? 

My2penneth

The FCA warned SVS but they ignored them. 

flustered

At last, there has been some communication from ITI Capital.  Here's the text of an email that I received from them timed at 17:42 yesterday (Tuesday).  Not sure how I missed it yesterday.

"We understand a number of SVS clients may have experienced a variety of technical issues as part of the client registration process. We would like to assure you, that we are working diligently to ensure each of these issues are resolved. In addition, there are a small group of clients who are yet to receive the initial onboarding communication from us. We would like to assure you, that your assets and money have been transferred to ITI Capital and are secure.
 
We are committed to having all of these issues resolved as soon as possible and expect to have a resolution in the next 24 to 48 hours.
 
We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused you and hope to be able to provide you with the level of service our existing clients expect from us.
 
Kindest regards,
ITI Capital Management team
info@iticapital.com | +44 (0) 20 3889 8333"

bowlhead99

Thrugelmir said:

Sheris said:

Silly_Donkey said:

On the fraud topic, is it true that SVS has been cleared of fraud? They seem to have been involved in some very dodgy sales of Carbon Credits alongside Deutsche Bank which was part of a major European fraud at the time, and it's possible that there is still an ongoing court case. I don't know the outcome, and SVS say they were innocent parties, but you might like to read this (the part SVS played comes in about halfway down):
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-05-07/how-major-banks-turned-a-blind-eye-to-the-theft-of-billions-of-pounds-of-public-money
I think that it's possible they ended up with a hefty fine for not doing due diligence, which maybe also brought them closer to the deeper attentions of the FCA.  
My understanding is that the FCA eventually stopped SVS from doing new business after finding that it had very questionable commission arrangements for promoting high-risk bonds to retail investors who didn't know what they were getting led into, and who certainly were not wanting to be taking such risks, and lastly SVS could also not explain how it valued illiquid assets. There are various articles out there on the web if you dig a little which show what they were doing with those investments. Here's an excerpt of one:
"But for three of its model portfolios, SVS chose an investment that eventually made up more than half the assets in each of them: Ireland-listed bonds issued by a company called Corporate Finance Bonds Ltd (CFBL).
Owned by a self-styled “insight architect”, CFBL had only two employees in its 2018 financial year, one of whom was the owner Stuart Anderson. CFBL’s bonds were designed to fund secured loans to small and medium-sized companies, but according to the FCA, SVS had little detail on what those loans were or even if they were to affiliates of CFBL.

Rather than cut the exposure of the model portfolios to the bonds after the FCA’s 2018 intervention, SVS instead increased it. Demetrios Christos Hadjigeorgiou, SVS’s boss, told the FCA he thought the bonds were some of the strongest performing parts of the model portfolios. The watchdog was not convinced. In official parlance, the FCA “does not consider this assessment to be supported by evidence. What the FCA did find was evidence of some racy fees, commissions and charges. Customers who did a pensions transfer or switch could find their investment pot depleted by more than a fifth in the process."

Hi,
Good bit of homework from yourself, yes the FCA stopped SVS from carring on business and they forced them into administration.   

Administration is the result of being insolvent. There's no option. Not a question of being "forced". 

Sheris said:

Then why did the FCA in 2018 let them contiune Thrugelmir ? 

Sheris, your question doesn't follow logically from Thrugelmir's comment.

If the FCA had not let them continue in 2018 they would have been insolvent earlier, because if the FCA imposed requirements on SVS stopping it from conducting regulated activities and restricting it from disposing of its own or its clients’ assets (all the things that it was in business to do, and was restricted from doing by the FCA in 2019), it would have lead to its earlier death. As a firm dying is not very useful for its customers (as you've seen first-hand over the last year), it stands to reason that they wouldn't prohibit it from carrying out regulated activities until they had done whatever monitoring and Investigations they considered necessary or useful.

After the FCA action, SVS (which didn't have sufficient reserves to withstand shuttering its business and stopping carrying out the things its clients had engaged it to do), was no longer viable or solvent. So it's closed, and there's no option of continuing because there is no money (other than what the administrators have been able to recover to partially pay some of its creditors).

Looking on the bright side - if they had started the process some months earlier, some customers would have got their assets back just in time to sell them at the bottom of a covid-induced panic in mid March, while the ongoing delay has allowed the market to recover somewhat before normal access was restored [ducks and runs]

flustered

Leonard Curtis have issued a statement today (Wednesday) regarding the transfer from SVS to ITI Capital.  I would post the link but it seems I have not been using the forum long enough to be able to do that!

Jools2001

flustered said:

Leonard Curtis have issued a statement today (Wednesday) regarding the transfer from SVS to ITI Capital.  I would post the link but it seems I have not been using the forum long enough to be able to do that!

Heres the statement,
cheers for letting  us know it was there

Jools

My2penneth

My  "on boarding "started last Friday. My ISA (although not identified as such) account is still showing "in progress".
I still have no access to my accounts! 

olderbutnowiser

My2penneth said:

My  "on boarding "started last Friday. My ISA (although not identified as such) account is still showing "in progress".
I still have no access to my accounts! 

Well you seem to be marginally ahead of me!  The  "on boarding " of my ISA account started on Saturday and is still only showing "On-boarding submitted". There is still no sign of my other regular share account.