SVS Securities - shut down?

Sheris

My2penneth said:

I wonder if ITI are lending our shares out to shorters?

My Pets at Home went short with L&C and I paid for them years ago, JOKERS 

RasputinB

My2penneth said:

I wonder if ITI are lending our shares out to shorters?

That is an advantage of a Reverse Transfer - the Distribution Plan shows that ITI can't lend Sub-Custody assets?

shahtx2

Hi everyone.

We need compensation for our losses.  I sent application to FSCS but it will be months before they even look at it. In the meantime I have been pressing LC about their lack of due diligence and awareness.  I have lost over GBP7,000 since last year with SVS.    Pls do check my response in bold & italics to their answers and kindly comment how we can get back our losses:

Dear Mr Shah,

Thank you for your email.  I will attempt to address the points you have raised one-by-one below:

1. “Pls see complaint against SVS is already with FSCS (attached).”

There was no attachment attached to your email received below.  If you have made a claim directly to the FSCS regarding mis-selling/negligence in relation to your dealings with SVS Securities PLC prior to the firms special administration on 5th August 2020, that is a matter for you to continue to deal with the FSCS directly regarding. 

            FSCS already engaged in compensation decision but their response is inevitably extremely slow due to the super-high nbr of victims. 

2. “Pls can you check the nbr of people complaining on https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/brokers/technical-issues-cripple-svs-clients-access-to-their-money-at-iti-capital/#comment-63020”

The Joint Special Administrators are aware of the negative feedback which has been generated online for ITI Capital following the transfer of clients from SVS Securities PLC, and continue to liaise with them on a daily basis regarding the common issues (most of which brought about by the technical issues they have suffered with their platform) in order to seek resolution for clients.           

                   LC know very well that liaising is what-to-do just to give feedback to ITI - what else pressure have you imposed on ITI ? Computer systems need human beings to program, test, quality-assure and finally move-to-production - ITI never followed this phase / path - and LC let this openly happen without knowing technical background & taking extreme risk off-their-head to move to ITI with the notion of let-things-take-their-toll and we will deal with the situation once we cross the bridge - this does not bode well with LC.

3. “Leonard Curtis had one job to find a suitable broker. ITI Capital is what they came up with. A broker fined for fraudulent activities in UK and the US. Banned from operating in the US.        Any one of us could have swung a dead cat and hit a better broker than ITI Capital. LC collected 40% fee on my assets which have dwindled by 45% thanks to their painful 52 weeks administration. PWC gave back access within 6-7 months to clients of Beaufort Securities which collapsed in 2018.”

Please find below the process that was undertaken for ITI Capital to be selected as the nominated broker for SVS clients to be transferred to with approval by the Creditors’ Committee, High Court, FCA and FSCS outlined below.  PwC transferred the majority of clients to The Share Centre in three separate tranches between September 2018 (around 50% of the client base) and January 2019.  I personally worked on that particular case for PwC at the time.  Unfortunately The Share Centre did not wish to take on the client base of SVS Securities PLC. Neither did any of the other larger UK operators, you might be familiar with.  Unfortunately it is not possible to force the client base of a failed stockbroking firm upon another company, if they do not wish to take it on. 

                  You cannot force clients but you can give them the choice and the let the burden be upon the client... since when did you give us a choice ?
                   Pls check almost 'all' the victims are blaming LC - has anyone said anything good about LC ?
                   Did LC take some 40% in fees ? Can this be declared and shared with all the clients ?  Can we pls some paper-proof on this showing what you charged and how this was calculated ? 

Summary of Process Undertaken

The Joint Special Administrators concluded that the quickest and most cost-effective way for Client Assets and Client Money to be returned to clients was by way of a transfer to a single broker regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”). Following their appointment, the JSAs engaged a specialist marketing company with relevant experience to undertake an accelerated marketing process to identify an appropriate single broker to whom the Client Assets and Client Money held by the Company could be transferred. As part of the accelerated marketing process, a shortlist of over 100 potential bidders was created, with company information being made available to those parties that expressed an interest in participating in the transfer, subject to the receipt of a confidentiality undertaking. A deadline was subsequently set for indicative offers, of which the JSAs received eleven from FCA regulated firms. The JSAs considered those offers in conjunction with the overall strategy and allowed the eleven potential bidders to conduct further due diligence, setting a further deadline for best and final offers. Three parties submitted final offers, one of whom subsequently withdrew from the bidding process. Further due diligence was then undertaken by the remaining two brokers and negotiations undertaken with each party. The JSAs subsequently selected ITI as the preferred broker for the transfer and the terms of the proposed transfer were agreed between the parties (in the "Sale and Purchase Agreement"). The key factor in the JSAs' decision was the scope of the FCA permissions granted to ITI, which made ITI a suitable broker to receive, and deal with, the variety of Client Assets and Client Money held by the Company. Following the completion of this process, ITI was selected as the preferred broker by the JSAs without objection by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (as member of the Creditors’ Committee) or the FCA. The Creditors' Committee were also consulted on the choice of ITI and raised no objection. The transfer to ITI was ultimately agreed by the High Court of Justice in England and Wales at a Court hearing on 7 May 2020.

I acknowledge that the Special Administration of SVS Securities PLC took place during a very turbulent time for UK and global markets, what with the uncertainty surrounding Brexit (domestically) and the Covid-19 pandemic (globally).  Unfortunately no clients of SVS Securities PLC can be compensated for any portfolio losses suffered during the period of the special administration due to market fluctuations.  The obligation of the JSAs was to return client assets (in terms of the number of units held) and client cash to clients, having being secured for clients at the point of administration on 5th August 2019. 

                    I don't agree: Your could have forced to re-use SVS in 'special' circumstances to give everyone a chance to move their shares wherever they wanted within a 6 month deadline eg. Instead you went on a crusade/battle to find a broker, in which you are not specialized in, to take over and you took enormous time to find one.
                        The High Courts (HC) decided based on LC recommendations. HC are not supposed-to and so henceforth they do not waste  time on checking what LC recommend - same goes for FSCS and FCA - then again why should they ? They enticed & relied upon the professionalism of LC to do this work hence the old saying: Any one of us could have swung a dead cat and hit a better broker than ITI Capital'  but again this is not to blame on ITI but a total shamble-of-work by LC.
                        Moreover LC could have laid-out penalties to ITI for not having their system quality-tested/assured prior to installation, if only of course LC had consulted Technical Specialists of IT Computer systems specializing in stockmarket-related brokerage systems. This is an extremely sophisticated computer architectural area which many of us are 'not' knowledgeable about and definitely not LC - why had LC not taken recommendations from Specialists to checkout ITI systems ?
                        May I ask: what would have happened if this was a scenario with an aircraft company if the on-boarding process failed ? Mr Craig and Mr Carl would you feel safe ?

4. “Criminal negligence on the part of LC. We are left to deal with a ghost company told to go to ombudsman dispute or court to resolve issues. FCA is directly responsible for fumbling on for years before they took action on SVS Securities.”

ITI Capital Limited are not a ghost company.  They are active and authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK.  Therefore, as an active regulated firm if you wish to lodge a complaint regarding them you must first go through their complaints process (allowing them 8 weeks to settle the matter), before you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service is remain dissatisfied.

                     PLS READ https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/brokers/technical-issues-cripple-svs-clients-access-to-their-money-at-iti-capital/#comment-63020  annd https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6032496/svs-securities-shut-down/p436  the thousands of people complaining (still uptill today) - I cannot be lying to you - the truth speaks for itself.
                    This is not say that ITI are a bad company, but that LC have not thoroughly checked if ITI systems were ready to handle all this upheaval.
                    LC were tasked with finding an appropriate replacement company for SVS which they failed to accomplish.
                     LC could have taken-over and reused SVS to do final adjustments to clients for same time period of few months and saved the headache of transferring to another broker.  Let the choice be by the clients - let them vote. Instead you wasted ridiculous time on ridiculous formalities of accounting and vetting the data held by SVS.
                     BTW: SVS were not a bad company at all with their easy, cheap & great online platform, lest their deceiving Management Issues got them into trouble. 

I note that you have chosen to transfer your portfolio away from ITI Capital, which of course is something that you and all former SVS Securities PLC clients are now able to do – having been transferred out of the special administration in which they could not access their assets and cash at all for the period between 5th August 2019 and 24th July 2020.
                            Left with no choice - would you waste so much non-remunerable time on convincing ITI Management of their highly poor un-tested untrust-worthy on-boarding system ?
                            I have not closed account incase they 'clean' their system(s) one-day and I will transfer funds back.
             All-in-all I've lost over GBP7,000 during this whole fiasco unable to access the stocks when the market was high.            

Yours sincerely

for and on behalf of

SVS SECURITIES PLC

Craig Harrison

For the Joint Special Administrators

dur77

Hi All
Just been trying to help my parents through this sorry saga and have initiated the transfer of ISAs from ITI to AJBell. But just reeceived a message saying that one of the shares, Royal Dutch Shell, cannot be accepted due to 'right entitlement' - AJ Bell then state: 'Please note that there are no conversion options and you will be unable to sell this with ITI. Please can you confirm that you are happy for this holding to be left with ITI under the circumstances?'
Anybody any idea what this means??
Many thanks

Josl

This is a shiny example of how a professional Law firm (Smith & Williamson LLP) dealt with administration of another broker collapsed in Oct-2019, Reyker Securities. 
Read the distribution plan FAQ,
1. Multiple brokers (max of five) to suit the clientele base
2. Ability to opt-out of these brokers and transfer to a choice of clients broker via administrator.
then see who here thinks LC did a fantastic job.

Michael_Reynolds

Monsieur_Bourse said:

SomeGuyinNZ said:

Monsieur_Bourse said:

SomeGuyinNZ said:

Have been reading this forum from Day 1, appreciate all the info here. 
Is there anyone who is non UK resident  (I'm in NZ) who has access to Phoenix yet? I was sent credentials a month ago but when I log in I still get "Your account application is pending approval". My wife hasn't even got to the stage where they create a Phoenix account - still only shows her QORT account.
Thanks all.

My wife and I live in France, to date I have access to my Phoenix account, although I think that it is an awful trading platform and to be honest not quite sure how it works. My wife does not have access to her Phoenix account, even though we created an account about 8 weeks ago, and then ITI created another account that is 'in progress', progress not being a word that I associate with ITI.

Merci Monsieur_Bourse. I am struggling to find a new broker to move to - every one I look at won't take non-residents (which was how I ended up at SVSXO in the first place as they were the only option). I'm not sure about Interactive Brokers - as I don't know whether I will come under the "UK" operation (what I'm really after is FSCS protection). Tried creating an IB account but can't progress as it turns out there's already an application in progress for me - which is ITI using IB in the background. Are you staying with ITI or have you got someone else you can transfer to? A little concerned that I might be stuck with ITI, their shocking service and custody fees.

I can only echo what jh_aux has posted and the brokers he/she has mentioned. I already have a live account with Saxo which I opened about 2 years ago, but I never funded the account as they wanted the initial deposit via CHAPS which would have cost me to open the account, so I thought stuff that. I think there is quite a high inactivity fee also is memory serves me right. My wife and I are both moving our accounts to HL as we both had accounts there already, hopefully you could open an account with them with a New Zealand address, at least the platform is straightforward, unlike ITI/IB. I am definitely not opened an account with IB I do not like either platform on offer. Once we have escaped from this awful outfit and things have finally been transferred to HL I may consider opening an account with Trading212. I have opened a demo account with them, and whilst the platform is not brilliant it is better than ITI/IB. The choice of shares to trade are limited, it just seems to be pot luck when you enter an epic code in their search facility as to whether the share can be traded with them. It may be handy for me as it lets you open an account in either GBP, USD or EUR, so I may start to trade some French shares.

Good luck in finding a new broker and if you discover any other brokers that will allow an account to be opened with a non UK address please let us all know.

I can tell you as an Australian resident that HL will not accept me as a client. I asked the question a few days ago and was told definately NO. Ask by all means and let me know if you get a different answer. I am in the last stages of setting up an account with Swissquote Luxembourg. They require alot of information including detailed proof of origin of funds! Not easy to provide if you have built up your life savings over 49 years!

My2penneth

dur77 said:

Hi All
Just been trying to help my parents through this sorry saga and have initiated the transfer of ISAs from ITI to AJBell. But just reeceived a message saying that one of the shares, Royal Dutch Shell, cannot be accepted due to 'right entitlement' - AJ Bell then state: 'Please note that there are no conversion options and you will be unable to sell this with ITI. Please can you confirm that you are happy for this holding to be left with ITI under the circumstances?'
Anybody any idea what this means??
Many thanks

See page 430 and 431. Another ITI induced coc kup. They created these shares on 22 June as a reminder for themselves. See my comments on p431 regarding letting Chris Smith of ITI know.  
Let them stay with ITI and transfer everything else which seems to be exactly what AJ Bell are going to do anyway so go ahead and confirm that they can stay at ITI.  

Your "correct " RDSB shares will be transferred and these electronic entitlement " shares'' should eventually be deleted by ITI.  
Have a look the ISIN numbers ( see pages p430/431)....

Nothing to worry about.

Michael_Reynolds

RasputinB said:

Would it be possible to develop a list of dividends that should have been paid on the shares transferred to ITI?

I have everything in my portfolio setup in the free FT online tool. This enables me to get daily valuations and all the dividends payable. Morningstar and many others have similar free tools

My2penneth

Michael_Reynolds said:

RasputinB said:

Would it be possible to develop a list of dividends that should have been paid on the shares transferred to ITI?

I have everything in my portfolio setup in the free FT online tool. This enables me to get daily valuations and all the dividends payable. Morningstar and many others have similar free tools

It will be difficult for anyone to advise you of what dividends you should have received if we don't know what shares you are holding! I keep a spreadsheet and enter XD and pay dates and make a note when received into my account.  

Michael_Reynolds

shahtx2 said:

Hi everyone.

We need compensation for our losses.  I sent application to FSCS but it will be months before they even look at it. In the meantime I have been pressing LC about their lack of due diligence and awareness.  I have lost over GBP7,000 since last year with SVS.    Pls do check my response in bold & italics to their answers and kindly comment how we can get back our losses:

Dear Mr Shah,

Thank you for your email.  I will attempt to address the points you have raised one-by-one below:

1. “Pls see complaint against SVS is already with FSCS (attached).”

There was no attachment attached to your email received below.  If you have made a claim directly to the FSCS regarding mis-selling/negligence in relation to your dealings with SVS Securities PLC prior to the firms special administration on 5th August 2020, that is a matter for you to continue to deal with the FSCS directly regarding. 

            FSCS already engaged in compensation decision but their response is inevitably extremely slow due to the super-high nbr of victims. 

2. “Pls can you check the nbr of people complaining on https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/brokers/technical-issues-cripple-svs-clients-access-to-their-money-at-iti-capital/#comment-63020”

The Joint Special Administrators are aware of the negative feedback which has been generated online for ITI Capital following the transfer of clients from SVS Securities PLC, and continue to liaise with them on a daily basis regarding the common issues (most of which brought about by the technical issues they have suffered with their platform) in order to seek resolution for clients.           

                   LC know very well that liaising is what-to-do just to give feedback to ITI - what else pressure have you imposed on ITI ? Computer systems need human beings to program, test, quality-assure and finally move-to-production - ITI never followed this phase / path - and LC let this openly happen without knowing technical background & taking extreme risk off-their-head to move to ITI with the notion of let-things-take-their-toll and we will deal with the situation once we cross the bridge - this does not bode well with LC.

3. “Leonard Curtis had one job to find a suitable broker. ITI Capital is what they came up with. A broker fined for fraudulent activities in UK and the US. Banned from operating in the US.        Any one of us could have swung a dead cat and hit a better broker than ITI Capital. LC collected 40% fee on my assets which have dwindled by 45% thanks to their painful 52 weeks administration. PWC gave back access within 6-7 months to clients of Beaufort Securities which collapsed in 2018.”

Please find below the process that was undertaken for ITI Capital to be selected as the nominated broker for SVS clients to be transferred to with approval by the Creditors’ Committee, High Court, FCA and FSCS outlined below.  PwC transferred the majority of clients to The Share Centre in three separate tranches between September 2018 (around 50% of the client base) and January 2019.  I personally worked on that particular case for PwC at the time.  Unfortunately The Share Centre did not wish to take on the client base of SVS Securities PLC. Neither did any of the other larger UK operators, you might be familiar with.  Unfortunately it is not possible to force the client base of a failed stockbroking firm upon another company, if they do not wish to take it on. 

                  You cannot force clients but you can give them the choice and the let the burden be upon the client... since when did you give us a choice ?
                   Pls check almost 'all' the victims are blaming LC - has anyone said anything good about LC ?
                   Did LC take some 40% in fees ? Can this be declared and shared with all the clients ?  Can we pls some paper-proof on this showing what you charged and how this was calculated ? 

Summary of Process Undertaken

The Joint Special Administrators concluded that the quickest and most cost-effective way for Client Assets and Client Money to be returned to clients was by way of a transfer to a single broker regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”). Following their appointment, the JSAs engaged a specialist marketing company with relevant experience to undertake an accelerated marketing process to identify an appropriate single broker to whom the Client Assets and Client Money held by the Company could be transferred. As part of the accelerated marketing process, a shortlist of over 100 potential bidders was created, with company information being made available to those parties that expressed an interest in participating in the transfer, subject to the receipt of a confidentiality undertaking. A deadline was subsequently set for indicative offers, of which the JSAs received eleven from FCA regulated firms. The JSAs considered those offers in conjunction with the overall strategy and allowed the eleven potential bidders to conduct further due diligence, setting a further deadline for best and final offers. Three parties submitted final offers, one of whom subsequently withdrew from the bidding process. Further due diligence was then undertaken by the remaining two brokers and negotiations undertaken with each party. The JSAs subsequently selected ITI as the preferred broker for the transfer and the terms of the proposed transfer were agreed between the parties (in the "Sale and Purchase Agreement"). The key factor in the JSAs' decision was the scope of the FCA permissions granted to ITI, which made ITI a suitable broker to receive, and deal with, the variety of Client Assets and Client Money held by the Company. Following the completion of this process, ITI was selected as the preferred broker by the JSAs without objection by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (as member of the Creditors’ Committee) or the FCA. The Creditors' Committee were also consulted on the choice of ITI and raised no objection. The transfer to ITI was ultimately agreed by the High Court of Justice in England and Wales at a Court hearing on 7 May 2020.

I acknowledge that the Special Administration of SVS Securities PLC took place during a very turbulent time for UK and global markets, what with the uncertainty surrounding Brexit (domestically) and the Covid-19 pandemic (globally).  Unfortunately no clients of SVS Securities PLC can be compensated for any portfolio losses suffered during the period of the special administration due to market fluctuations.  The obligation of the JSAs was to return client assets (in terms of the number of units held) and client cash to clients, having being secured for clients at the point of administration on 5th August 2019. 

                    I don't agree: Your could have forced to re-use SVS in 'special' circumstances to give everyone a chance to move their shares wherever they wanted within a 6 month deadline eg. Instead you went on a crusade/battle to find a broker, in which you are not specialized in, to take over and you took enormous time to find one.
                        The High Courts (HC) decided based on LC recommendations. HC are not supposed-to and so henceforth they do not waste  time on checking what LC recommend - same goes for FSCS and FCA - then again why should they ? They enticed & relied upon the professionalism of LC to do this work hence the old saying: Any one of us could have swung a dead cat and hit a better broker than ITI Capital'  but again this is not to blame on ITI but a total shamble-of-work by LC.
                        Moreover LC could have laid-out penalties to ITI for not having their system quality-tested/assured prior to installation, if only of course LC had consulted Technical Specialists of IT Computer systems specializing in stockmarket-related brokerage systems. This is an extremely sophisticated computer architectural area which many of us are 'not' knowledgeable about and definitely not LC - why had LC not taken recommendations from Specialists to checkout ITI systems ?
                        May I ask: what would have happened if this was a scenario with an aircraft company if the on-boarding process failed ? Mr Craig and Mr Carl would you feel safe ?

4. “Criminal negligence on the part of LC. We are left to deal with a ghost company told to go to ombudsman dispute or court to resolve issues. FCA is directly responsible for fumbling on for years before they took action on SVS Securities.”

ITI Capital Limited are not a ghost company.  They are active and authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK.  Therefore, as an active regulated firm if you wish to lodge a complaint regarding them you must first go through their complaints process (allowing them 8 weeks to settle the matter), before you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service is remain dissatisfied.

                     PLS READ https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/brokers/technical-issues-cripple-svs-clients-access-to-their-money-at-iti-capital/#comment-63020  annd https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6032496/svs-securities-shut-down/p436  the thousands of people complaining (still uptill today) - I cannot be lying to you - the truth speaks for itself.
                    This is not say that ITI are a bad company, but that LC have not thoroughly checked if ITI systems were ready to handle all this upheaval.
                    LC were tasked with finding an appropriate replacement company for SVS which they failed to accomplish.
                     LC could have taken-over and reused SVS to do final adjustments to clients for same time period of few months and saved the headache of transferring to another broker.  Let the choice be by the clients - let them vote. Instead you wasted ridiculous time on ridiculous formalities of accounting and vetting the data held by SVS.
                     BTW: SVS were not a bad company at all with their easy, cheap & great online platform, lest their deceiving Management Issues got them into trouble. 

I note that you have chosen to transfer your portfolio away from ITI Capital, which of course is something that you and all former SVS Securities PLC clients are now able to do – having been transferred out of the special administration in which they could not access their assets and cash at all for the period between 5th August 2019 and 24th July 2020.
                            Left with no choice - would you waste so much non-remunerable time on convincing ITI Management of their highly poor un-tested untrust-worthy on-boarding system ?
                            I have not closed account incase they 'clean' their system(s) one-day and I will transfer funds back.
             All-in-all I've lost over GBP7,000 during this whole fiasco unable to access the stocks when the market was high.            

Yours sincerely

for and on behalf of

SVS SECURITIES PLC

Craig Harrison

For the Joint Special Administrators

I have been over all of this with Andrew Poxon and Alex Cadwallader (the JSAs). They are very sure of their position and have no intention of giving any ground whatsoever. Together with the FCA, FSCS and the High Court they have dumped 20,000 clients on a compnay of Russian crooks, wiped their hands and walked away! The entire infrastructure is breaking down in the UK! Believe me, during that 12 month administration I lost alot more than GBP 7,000!