SVS Securities - shut down?

Josl

johnburman
Find this particular paragraph on legislation website doc titled
The Investment Bank (Amendment of Definition) and Special Administration (Amendment) Regulations 2017

Michael_Reynolds
Creditors Committee consists of a member from clients, creditors each and third chair is occupied by the FSCS. No wonder member representing clients will always be out voted at these meetings

rnf11

If it is cash that has indeed arrived in the HL a/c - it is good to see that some broker transfer cash has been prised away from ITIC - at last.

pafpcg

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.

The documents published with the Distribution Plan on LC's web-site give an outline of the process for the selection of the "New Broker" (ITI), although not the criteria used for the selection.

I can guess a couple of reasons for why we have arrived where we are:

1. As the Administrator, LC has an obligation to dispose of the assets of SVS for as high a price as possible in order to maximise any return to the creditors.  We know that ITI has paid a considerable sum (£500k?) for the client accounts  -  if ITI submitted the highest bid, what else could LC do?  Setting-up a facility to allow clients individually to transfer-out their holdings to their own preferred broker would:  a) have lost the opportunity to sell the client accounts and  b) cost the resources needed to undertake the process.

2.  There have been several recent posts in this thread about the difficulty of finding a UK broker willing to accept clients outside the UK.  The small number of brokers in the final selection could be easily explained by brokers on the original "expression-of-interest" list losing interest once it became apparent that SVS had non-UK based clients.

The above is, of course, just speculation...

Finally, you make the assertion:  "£283m is the best commercial loan they could acquire to support their floundering business for a few months."  I do hope that you are not suggesting that ITI is using the assets held on behalf of clients in the SVS nominee companies to support the running costs of ITI.  That would be a major breach of their fiduciary responsibilities.  If you have any evidence for this, you should report it to the Financial Conduct Authority immediately.  Please don't make such allegations on this forum as it could lead to the abrupt termination this thread - the owners of the MSE forum have a reputation for acting first and asking questions afterwards!

n_aftab

LEAR1 said:

n_aftab said:

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

Could you give us a guide as how long the lag was between your stock appearing and the cash arriving? A week? Longer, shorter? Also, when you say 'cash back', I presume you mean arrive at HL? Or did you withdraw this to your personal account and only move your stocks to HL? Thanks

I was sent a form about 4 weeks ago for my cash, and it arrived last week, so pretty much 4 weeks for the cash
and the transfer out documents went in pretty much straight away as i elected not to continue with iti, those forms went in at the start of aug that involved me getting the forms from hargreaves, filling them in, sending them back to hargreaves and they then contacting iti for the valuations. 

I had no confirmation or update about either the cash or stocks from iti, i just had the occasion email from hargreaves telling me what they had done, and the fact they had heard nothing back etc, and i was logging on every other day to see if anything had appeared as others had said that hargreaves were getting some transfers.

I tried calling them a number of times, when they received the account, but nobody ever picked up the phone, and then last week someone with a SA accent picked it up, but they really were unable to offer any real help.

I think on the whole transfer outs are being done, slowly but eventually everyone that wants to get out will get out.
 

LEAR1

n_aftab said:

I was sent a form about 4 weeks ago for my cash, and it arrived last week, so pretty much 4 weeks for the cash

and the transfer out documents went in pretty much straight away as i elected not to continue with iti, those forms went in at the start of aug that involved me getting the forms from hargreaves, filling them in, sending them back to hargreaves and they then contacting iti for the valuations. 

I had no confirmation or update about either the cash or stocks from iti, i just had the occasion email from hargreaves telling me what they had done, and the fact they had heard nothing back etc, and i was logging on every other day to see if anything had appeared as others had said that hargreaves were getting some transfers.

I tried calling them a number of times, when they received the account, but nobody ever picked up the phone, and then last week someone with a SA accent picked it up, but they really were unable to offer any real help.

I think on the whole transfer outs are being done, slowly but eventually everyone that wants to get out will get out.
 

Agree with all you have said, and my stock has arrived with HL too. I was just curious to know if you had received the cash balance into your HL account (following the arrival of the stock), and if yes, how long the cash had taken after the stock transfer date. But it sounds like you withdrew the money directly, ahead of the transfer taking place.

n_aftab

LEAR1 said:

n_aftab said:

I was sent a form about 4 weeks ago for my cash, and it arrived last week, so pretty much 4 weeks for the cash

and the transfer out documents went in pretty much straight away as i elected not to continue with iti, those forms went in at the start of aug that involved me getting the forms from hargreaves, filling them in, sending them back to hargreaves and they then contacting iti for the valuations. 

I had no confirmation or update about either the cash or stocks from iti, i just had the occasion email from hargreaves telling me what they had done, and the fact they had heard nothing back etc, and i was logging on every other day to see if anything had appeared as others had said that hargreaves were getting some transfers.

I tried calling them a number of times, when they received the account, but nobody ever picked up the phone, and then last week someone with a SA accent picked it up, but they really were unable to offer any real help.

I think on the whole transfer outs are being done, slowly but eventually everyone that wants to get out will get out.
 

Agree with all you have said, and my stock has arrived with HL too. I was just curious to know if you had received the cash balance into your HL account (following the arrival of the stock), and if yes, how long the cash had taken after the stock transfer date. But it sounds like you withdrew the money directly, ahead of the transfer taking place.

yes i should have said, my cash i filled in the form and it was sent back to my bank account. The stock all went to HL

My2penneth

n_aftab said:

I
I tried calling them a number of times, when they received the account, but nobody ever picked up the phone, and then last week someone with a SA accent picked it up, but they really were unable to offer any real help.

The new call centre is in South Africa - hence the SA accent!.

Jools2001

Finally have my non isa accounttransferring to HL,
However HL wont accept my African Minerals, or Urals shares as both are delisted!
Any idea what i can do, as i dont want to lose these shares if they start up again (which is possible )

Will ITI issue me with a paper certificate for these shares?  Anyone else having the same with any delisted shares?

Jools

jenwrendorset

Jools2001 said:

Finally have my non isa accounttransferring to HL,
However HL wont accept my African Minerals, or Urals shares as both are delisted!
Any idea what i can do, as i dont want to lose these shares if they start up again (which is possible )

Will ITI issue me with a paper certificate for these shares?  Anyone else having the same with any delisted shares?

Jools

We're having exactly the same problem, check out pg 437.  I've been back to LC and their response is printed below:

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.

I've been back to iWeb although I already knew their response which leaves the 3 options above and only possibly no. 1 is viable - no broker will take on a de-listed company on its own, why would they? and even if there was a registrar still acting for this delisted company (which I'm sure there isn't) I think the chances of getting a certificated form is about as likely as my cash withdrawals landing up in my bank account this side of Christmas.  I'm going back to LC and request that they sort out Option 1 - they've got us in this mess so I hold them responsible - apart from that, there is no chance of an email being answered if I send it.  Will keep you notified.

steverobson1021

Here's a joke, ready?

Leonard Curtis!!

O to the M to the G, i'm peeing myself.

This bunch of clowns have overseen the transfer of my SVS accounts to a dubious company ITI Capital.

Due diligence - hahahahahaha

FCA -  shocking oversight of the whole sorry saga.

Think i read somewhere that Leonard Curtis ran up charges of £4.75 million for their 'work'. Can't help think they should ONLY have been paid AFTER SVS clients got access to the assets and cash.

Sure that would have aligned their focus to mine.

Absolutely shocking.