SVS Securities - shut down?

collin618

Does anyone have an email address for individuals at Leonard Curtis please

Jamesram

AN EMAIL to Leonard Curtis on 7 July 

 "Good day .I am contacting you because I have been asked not to contact ITI. I am concerned about the arrangements for accessing my former SVS held stocks, and in particular approx £58K in cash, on or before 23 July. It is almost a year since I lost access to these accounts[....................}

So I am very sensitive to any potential delay in dealing with my accounts in accordance with the timetable. ITI have 36000 customers. They are taking on approx 15000 more SVS  accounts I believe. And yet they have allocated only 2 days-22 and 23 July to process new accounts for trading and drawdown of funds on 23 July.
Are they really going to be able to process all those new accounts via internet on that day? Each day I am kept out of my money I am losing either savings bank interest or investment opportunity.
I don't know why such a small outfit as ITI were chosen as appropriate, when several small brokers of similar size have gone out of business over the last few years- I would have thought iWeb, HL or Sharecentre would all have been a more re-assuring broker to choose.
But my  main point is to seek re-assurance that ITI will really be able to comply with its obligations to provide facillity to me by 23 July (which is the very last day of the "up to" 6 weeks we have previously been informed about)- in particular do they have staff geared up to handle the thousands of security check documents which will be heading their way from 22 July within the obligatory time scale, and why cannot I send in those documents to them now, a fortnight beforehand, rather than just having to wait and hope that they will be able to cope?

So are you able to offer any re-assurance please? Thank you. "

LC reply, same day: "Thank you for your email. We have passed your query onto the senior project manager at ITI Capital Limited, overseeing the migration of SVS Securities clients across to them at the end of this month for his response.
As soon as we have it, we shall forward it on to you."

Presumably LC are still waiting, as I heard never heard anything more

RasputinB

collin618 said:

Does anyone have an email address for individuals at Leonard Curtis please

Carl Lever is a Manager for the JSAs whilst they administer the affairs, business and property of the Company.

Carl.Lever@leonardcurtis.co.uk

Jamesram

collin618 said:

Does anyone have an email address for individuals at Leonard Curtis please

  Try John.Smith@leonardcurtis if you have the correct John Smith name, or you can use SVS@leonardcurtis and just put For attention of *********- they are not a huge outfit at the SVS administration

Josl

shawdon said:

Extract from Rahul reply earlier giving details of "up to 4-5 brokers" they are hopefully now actioning transfer requests for. Interestingly, following my email to Rahul i now had my first reply from David Moss since the 28th August, having ignored by previous 15 emails!:
Apologies for the delays you have experienced. I’ve asked our Operations Manager to look into this and give you an update by COB today. I do know we are in the process of agreeing bulk transfers with HL as they are one of the 4-5 brokers to which we are getting frequent transfer requests.

 

Kind regards,

 

Rahul

He's sending a generic email to everyone. I got the same email today from him. Word to word.

johnburman

Josl and others.  Why are you still contacting LC?  The Distribution Plan was agreed by the Court, the Creditors committee and the FCA.   LC did all they had to do.  Do you have *evidence* that LC knew it woudl be a shambles?  The supposition yes - we all knwo that - but evidence NO.
Did they choose somebody 'suitable'?  For the FCA yes.  For the creditors of SVS yes, for us poor clients no.  But how were they to knwo that at the time?  Where is the *evidence*?  

and if you say ITI is crooked - where is your evidence.  Where is yoru statement ot the Polcie or FCA!.  There is no evidence I know of.  Yes ITI specialised in derivatives and FX not shares and in particular not XO shares for the mass market. but they were buying in expertise.  Where we must blame LC (although it is ITI) is that there were not and are not enough staff to deal with the transfers/onboarding of new clients. 

Why LC; why FCA; why LSE  and why ITI did you bid for and win 20k new clients when you had the staff to deal with 3k on a good day - and far fewer on a bad day, which it is?  

We need the transfers done and done ASAP.

Josl

Michael_Reynolds I researched ITI Capital in June when LC informed us of their selection. Initially, I found their website was too generic looked a lot like websites located in unregulated countries, site had generic T&C, did not offer services suitable for my portfolio, most importantly missing crucial information such as list of charges (which are displayed on all major brokers w/o having to open an account). I also asked why creditors committee chose this obscure firm over dozens of others and which brokers were on the reject list.
I raised these concerns with LC. Craig replied that detailed information is to follow on why ITI was selected. Its not possible to have the shares transferred to a broker of my choice from SVS. LC has negotiated a 6 months fee-free period in which to transfer out.
Upon receiving the reply, I immediately went to FCA register and found the regulatory fines. I could not believe my eyes that it was the new brand name for FXCM. What LC didn't say in the communication that committee or court were provided with this detail of infraction. Later they also said they did not want holding returning to SVS either. I think RasputinB  has kindly posted the link i was unable to post. You can look for his post today at 9:44am 
I emailed LC,

I have received your detailed communication about ITI Capital. It fails to mention firm’s history of violations in the UK. Firm is barred from registering and trading in the US due to fraudulent activity with its clients. In UK, it has been fined for hiding the investigation of US authorities from FCA and manipulating market prices to skim profit off its clients. I fail to see how administrators (Leonard Curtis) could view this firm as a suitable/reliable broker for the transfer. Leonard Curtis should explain why this notorious firm was chosen over dozens of others?

LC replied,

Thank you for your email.  As you will see from the “Why was ITI selected?” question in our Transfer FAQs published on our website last week (linked to below), the Joint Special Administrators didn’t have dozens of other broking firms to choose from in the selection process.  In fact, from an initial list of 14 firms who expressed an interest in acquiring the client base, by December 2019 we were left with a shortlist of only two firms.

Transfer FAQs:

leonardcurtis.co.uk /wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Transfer-FAQs-11.06.2020-.pdf

 Following the completion of this process, ITI was selected as the preferred broker by the Administrators without objection by the FSCS or the FCA. The Creditors' Committee were also consulted on the choice of ITI.

 ITI Capital Limited is authorised and regulated by the FCA in the UK and we would advise that you take the matter up directly with the FCA if you have reason to believe that the firm should not hold that status.

 I would also remind you that as part of the terms of the transfer, ITI Capital have agreed to transfer on any clients not wishing their accounts to remain under their custody free of charge, if clients initiate their broker transfers away within the first 6 months following the transfer to them.  If you do not wish for your account to remain under their management, I would suggest that you take advantage of that offer, which the Joint Special Administrators have negotiated on clients’ behalves. 

rnf11

RasputinB said:

........ But had we known that the company we were being transferred to was ITI Capital we would have been able to make our own investigations and make our concerns known prior to the transfer.

Some of us did do just that. With no effect whatsoever.

Nbs222

I agree with Johnburman , transfers should be the priority .  How do we get timeline from ITI for transfers apart from writing to ITI, LC and getting no reply.

On the 14-sep-20   update they don't even mention transfers. Is there any other way to get timeline for transfers from ITI.

RasputinB

johnburman said:

LC did all they had to do.

I don't agree with that! Maybe they followed the letter of the law but they have a responsibility for the resultant shambles.

They are also in a very good position to assist ITI to get things straightened out. I think that up to 1st August they even had a responsibility to supply staff to ITI. Where are those staff now?