SVS Securities - shut down?

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!

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. 
You have the details of your holdings and cash which LC supplied at the time of transfer to ITI? If you haven't then they will give you that info on request. Set these up in one of the free tools and it will tell you the dividends paid over the last nine weeks. 
I have hammered ITI about my dividends and they are now ALL up to date in my onboarding account. You will see several balances in each currency account. The first  is for the balances transferred over to ITI by LC prior to June 23rd and doesn't show any detail (you should already have that info from LC). The second balance shows dividends received by ITI post June 23rd and is detailed under the cash statement tab.
Hope this helps

Josl

shahtx2
You are right. LC did not give us a choice to opt out and have our holdings transferred out to a broker of our choice. LC are required to give this choice which is in the legislative section of 'The Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations'. In this document, there is another clause that places legal liability on the administrators to ensure the contract with transferee (ITI) must allow clients to transfer out without unreasonable delays. Craig Harrison wrote to me insisting that investors do not have the choice to stop the transfer to ITI or transfer out to another broker. In fact he went on to say that LC prefers that investors must make use of the great incentive negotiated by LC and that ITI has given assurances to hold assets 'in good faith' until a request for transfer out is arranged. This email I have sent to my law firm for a review.
FTAdviser quoted LC that more than 100 brokers came forward and showed interest in taking on the clients of SVS. Insufferable Craig Harrison told me only a half a dozen firms came forward. Smith and Williamson LLP managed to find 5 brokers for the clients of Reyker securities during the same time LC were shopping for brokers. It makes sense that it had to be unfavourable terms/fees of LC that put reputable brokers off from acquiring SVS clients. I can't think of any reason why a broker would not want to acquire thousands of clients and keep them on by providing a good service.
ITI on the other hand 1) were not interested in keeping the client base on by providing any thing that resembled a service (from day 1 they swiftly went under the cover of IT failures)  2) £283m is the best commercial loan they could acquire to support their floundering business for a few months. No bank, I know of, would offer ITI £283m on these poor financial statements. There's is a reason why ITI keep changing the business name every few years. I guarantee, ITI will be operating under a different name shortly. They can't keep the business running with this much bad publicity.
Shah, if there is any consolation, I have lost a lot more than you in capital and being a day trader, a whole lot more in loss of income.

Michael_Reynolds

Josl said:

shahtx2
You are right. LC did not give us a choice to opt out and have our holdings transferred out to a broker of our choice. LC are required to give this choice which is in the legislative section of 'The Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations'. In this document, there is another clause that places legal liability on the administrators to ensure the contract with transferee (ITI) must allow clients to transfer out without unreasonable delays. Craig Harrison wrote to me insisting that investors do not have the choice to stop the transfer to ITI or transfer out to another broker. In fact he went on to say that LC prefers that investors must make use of the great incentive negotiated by LC and that ITI has given assurances to hold assets 'in good faith' until a request for transfer out is arranged. This email I have sent to my law firm for a review.
FTAdviser quoted LC that more than 100 brokers came forward and showed interest in taking on the clients of SVS. Insufferable Craig Harrison told me only a half a dozen firms came forward. Smith and Williamson LLP managed to find 5 brokers for the clients of Reyker securities during the same time LC were shopping for brokers. It makes sense that it had to be unfavourable terms/fees of LC that put reputable brokers off from acquiring SVS clients. I can't think of any reason why a broker would not want to acquire thousands of clients and keep them on by providing a good service.
ITI on the other hand 1) were not interested in keeping the client base on by providing any thing that resembled a service (from day 1 they swiftly went under the cover of IT failures)  2) £283m is the best commercial loan they could acquire to support their floundering business for a few months. No bank, I know of, would offer ITI £283m on these poor financial statements. There's is a reason why ITI keep changing the business name every few years. I guarantee, ITI will be operating under a different name shortly. They can't keep the business running with this much bad publicity.
Shah, if there is any consolation, I have lost a lot more than you in capital and being a day trader, a whole lot more in loss of income.

I think this has been covered in earlier posts. If I remember corectly in the distribution plan approved by Mr Justice Miles at the High Court our rights to have our portfolios transferred direct from LC to alternative brokers were waived? The Creditors committee which no one seems know the make of, lodged no objection. LC made it quite clear last year that there could only be a single broker and all transfers would be to them. LC have covered themselves carefully. They have a considerable reputation to protect and have covered all angles. The High Court, FCA and FSCS approved the plan. LC won't be easy to turn over. Having said all of that I entirely agree with Mr Shah. They have behaved disgacefully and should not be allowed to get away with it. I have made that quite clear in my emails to Andrew Poxon and Alex Cadwallader. I have endured 14 months of unbelievable stress and anxiety and lost a fortune to boot! It has ruined my health! The question is who should pay compensation for that?

jenwrendorset

jenwrendorset said:

RasputinB said:

If shares are "stuck" with ITI Capital because your preferred broker won't take them wouldn't it be a good idea to ask Leonard Curtis what you can do?

Done that......their response, quick as it was, actually missed the point of my email.....they have contacted the Transfer Out team on my behalf to hurry along our transfers of both Phoenix and Qort accounts however in my email I explained (quite clearly I thought!) that iWeb won't accept the Qort account so now what happens - this is part of my response back to LC and I quote

"the problem is that  iWeb will NOT accept the Qort account as it only contains the delisted BNN shares and on the other hand, ITI Capital will not accept AIM shares in their Phoenix account so my question is:  what am I supposed to do, or more to the point what are you going to do about this.  We can't be the only ex-SVS clients to hold AIM listed shares - why was this problem not known before ITI Capital took on the responsibility. If, as I suspect, these shares are going to lay dormant in a Qort account until they are relisted am I going to be charged by ITI for holding this account - after what we've all been subjected to I sincerely hope this is not the case."

I've already submitted letters of complaint to FCA; FOS and my MP so not sure where else to turn.  I'm beginning to lose the will to live.

Received the following response from LC this morning

"Thank you for your reply. I was under the impression that iWeb would not accept the BNN shares on their own, as the valuation statement they were incorrectly sent by ITI Capital only included the delisted stock.  I was assuming that iWeb would take a different view and would be able to accept the delisted shares if they were coming along with all the other tradable shares in your ITI Phoenix account.  Have you spoken to iWeb to ask if they will take the BNN shares if they form part of a transfer including the rest of your active portfolio?

 

If iWeb will not take them, you’re other options would be to:

 

1.       Keep them with ITI longer-term. I believe their custody charges are based on a percentage portfolio value, so it maybe that it won’t cost you anything to keep a currently value-less share with them – but you would need to confirm that with them;

2.       Find another broker that will accept them in a transfer from ITI;

3.       Request that they be withdrawn from ITI in certificated form so you can hold them yourself.  This option is dependent on a registrar still acting for the company being able to materialise the stock  or, if a registrar no longer acts for the company, the company doing this themselves.

 

Many SVS clients did hold AIM shares and although ITI’s Phoenix accounts cannot hold them, they are able to trade them for clients over the telephone – provided they are not delisted, like BNN currently is.

 

Yours sincerely

for and on behalf of

SVS SECURITIES PLC

I have spoken again with iWeb who have confirmed that they cannot accept any delisted shares whether individually or included in a portfolio so that has knocked that on the head.  I think my only option is to check with ITI as to whether they will levy a charge if they remain in the Qort account for the forseeable - the jury is still out as to whether they will resurface but the Chairman is writing very positively so trying to remain optimistic.  On the plus side (but I'm not convinced) iWeb has indicated that my transfer should be completed by 30/09.....I'll be watching for the pigs up there in sky.  Fingers crossed on that, now having to chase the rest of the family's transfers.

rnf11

Still no sign of any cash being transferred across from ITIC - a week after the stocks had arrived.

The potential for fraud cannot be overlooked...

johnburman

Josl ....where does it say "In this document, there is another clause that places legal liability on the administrators to ensure the contract with transferee (ITI) must allow clients to transfer out without unreasonable delays".?

n_aftab

As of this morning i have had all of my cash back and all of my stocks are now showing correctly in HL. 

pafpcg

Michael_Reynolds said:

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!

Welcome to the world of Insolvency Practitioners!

The framework of law in England & Wales insulates insolvency practitioners from pretty much any liability - how else would you be able to get someone to take on the administration of a failing or bankrupt company?