SVS Securities - shut down?

Jamesram

Copy of LC PDF 30 October 2019 Client and Creditors Committee Information

CREDITORS’ COMMITTEE
At the initial meeting of clients and creditors held on 10 October 2019 it was resolved to establish a Creditors’ Committee (“the Committee”).
The Committee was formally constituted on 23 October 2019 and the members of the Committee are as follows:
 Mr Paul Glaser
 Dr Patrick Wright
 Mr Bin Lou being represented by Mr Salam Alaswad
 Mr Harry Mount
 The Financial Services Compensation Scheme
The Committee will represent the wider constituency of clients and creditors during the course of the Special Administration.
Should you wish to contact any member of the Committee please contact the Joint Special Administrators who will forward on your enquiry. The Joint Special Administrators may be contacted by:
Email: svs@leonardcurtis.co.uk
Telephone: 0203 457 4871

RasputinB

"The final terms of the Distribution Plan were approved by the Creditors' Committee on 21 April 2020."

Jamesram

Sorry Pafpcg had not spotted your post referencing the same PDF.

Anyway, the names are there now for anyone to resarch if they want to. Also, I agree that there does not seem to be any publicly disclosed or published Report from the Committee, which I guess you might expect as they were representing SVS clients' interests. But I don't know much about these Special Administration procedures- who does? They seem to be a niche law unto themselves.

rnf11

As regards ITIC treatment of dividends. I noted one of mine that was passed across by LC after the transfer date was identifiable by an increase in the ITIC (SC) a/c cash balance compared with that as at the LC transfer date. A later dividend paid direct to ITIC was shown as a separate amount but not further identified.

Since I can no longer see the Qort details, I do not know whether the latest due on 22nd September has been dealt with or not. In any case all the cash ought to have been tranferred out by now, so that is looking more than tardy.

The next dividend due shortly will no doubt be paid to ITIC after the cash transfers out (hopefully), and I wouId would expect that to be forwarded to the new home in the accepted manner.

RasputinB

From the Court transcript -

First, account must be taken of the purpose of the distribution plan under the Rules, which is to assist in the achievement of Objective 1 of returning client assets as early as possible.  The court must be satisfied that the plan provides a fair and reasonable means of effecting the distribution of the client assets to which the plan relates.

Secondly, the context in which the application is brought before the court is itself material.

The distribution plan can only be approved if the creditors’ committee has approved it or has had an opportunity to explain why it has not approved it and its role in relation to the distribution plan will be a particularly material factor in the court’s decision.  Individual clients will have been notified both of the plan before the hearing and are able to make representations against it so that their input, or the lack of it, will again be material.  The FCA has to be notified of a hearing and its objections, or lack of them will be relevant.

Finally, the making of the application will itself indicate the exercise of professional judgment on the part of the administrators as officers of the court and weight is to be given to their judgment.  While none of those factors can be conclusive, and the court must exercise its own judgment, they are to be given particular weight.

Third, if the court is satisfied that all relevant persons have been given a proper opportunity to make representations and have either specifically agreed to them or at least not objected to them, the court is very likely to be slow to withhold approval or substitute its own assessment of what is fair and reasonable as a means of effecting the distribution of client assets for the purposes of Objective 1.

...................................................................................................................................

Were individual clients notified that we were able to make representations?
If some clients did make representations should LC have made the court aware of the representations?

Sheris

Jamesram said:

Michael_Reynolds said:

Sheris said:

There was no member for the clients, I asked for a contact name or email to L&C in a email back in Febuary, I recivied a phone call the next day from a L&C mobile works number, did not want to put it in wrinting in a email to me, straight away I thought this is being covered up.
Even told the person at L&C, I bet Andrew Poxon is already looking for his new Ferrari or Ranger Rover, no reply.   

IF THIS IS TRUE & WE CAN PROVE IT THEN IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS IS THE SMOKING GUN WE'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR?

JAMESRAM IF YOU ARE STILL LOOKING AT THESE POSTS WE'D APPRECIATE YOUR OPINION? IF LC NEW THAT THERE WAS NO CLIENT REPRESENTATION ON THAT COMMITTEE THEN THEY HAVE MISLEAD MR JUSTICE MILES AT THE HIGH COURT AND THAT'S EXPLOSIVE?

Yes I am still here. Currently engaged with Robin Amos of Citywire trying to help him with a proposed follow-up piece to https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/svs-client-fury-as-new-broker-fails-to-return-278m/a1390644 bringing matters up to date.

As regards the Creditors Committee, my recollection is that LC has stated that there were 4 people representing SVS client interests on the Committee, at least one being legally qualified and others having investor experience. I cannot recall the actual document but will check for it when I can. Having a bit of a family crisis at present, so maybe someone else will locate it first? Was it in the LC Report in late August I wonder, on the LC website PDSF docs?

As regards misleading the Court, of course that would be serious- for instance,solicitors for LC are Officers of the Court and it would be hugely embarrassing to them if that had happened. However, such a serious allegation needs serious investigation and as I say, my recollection is that there was client representation- in fact one of my earlier posts I believe posited that it would be interesting to know  the identity of these 4 people because it was hard to understand how they had come to a decision in favour of ITI. But of course we don't know what they were told about the company at the time- we are going back to early 2020, possibly even late 2019, when the decision in principle was made.

ITI Captial ! with there pass history and background, they should have been eliminated in the first round with one of these X 
and thats common sense.

johnburman

LC have just lodged an ADMINISTRATORS REPORT TO 4 AUGUST 2020 with Companies House.  It will take a few days to process but shoudl be on the Companies House by the end of the week.  Should make interesting reading.

Jamesram

RasputinB said:

From the Court transcript -

First, account must be taken of the purpose of the distribution plan under the Rules, which is to assist in the achievement of Objective 1 of returning client assets as early as possible.  The court must be satisfied that the plan provides a fair and reasonable means of effecting the distribution of the client assets to which the plan relates.

Secondly, the context in which the application is brought before the court is itself material.

The distribution plan can only be approved if the creditors’ committee has approved it or has had an opportunity to explain why it has not approved it and its role in relation to the distribution plan will be a particularly material factor in the court’s decision.  Individual clients will have been notified both of the plan before the hearing and are able to make representations against it so that their input, or the lack of it, will again be material.  The FCA has to be notified of a hearing and its objections, or lack of them will be relevant.

Finally, the making of the application will itself indicate the exercise of professional judgment on the part of the administrators as officers of the court and weight is to be given to their judgment.  While none of those factors can be conclusive, and the court must exercise its own judgment, they are to be given particular weight.

Third, if the court is satisfied that all relevant persons have been given a proper opportunity to make representations and have either specifically agreed to them or at least not objected to them, the court is very likely to be slow to withhold approval or substitute its own assessment of what is fair and reasonable as a means of effecting the distribution of client assets for the purposes of Objective 1.

...................................................................................................................................

Were individual clients notified that we were able to make representations?
If some clients did make representations should LC have made the court aware of the representations?

YES, Rasputin B, and how were we as ex-Clients of SVS supposed to make representations when the identity of ITI Capital as the intended transferee Broker was with held from us under a spurious veil of secrecy until the deal was done?!!!

RobHun

Jamesram said:

Rob at 6.12 pm.  Rob - While I am thinking on- if you are printing out and sending a Transfer instruction to HL may I suggest you scan/print of a copy for your records. Then, if ITI say we did not get a request, you can email them  a scanned copy of your written signed and dated instruction. I did this whenever I contacted Transfers or Accountmanagement at ITI.  They seemed to accept one of these in the end- I am not sure how it helped but it seemed to, I know that the guy who was helping me, Pras, on a couple of occasions asked me for a Transfer copy to be sent to him direct so he could give it to the ITI Transfers team/part-time intern. Again, best of luck

Thanks again for the advice Jamesram (& others). It's taken a few weeks but HL have finally managed to make contact with ITI and got a response. That's the good news. The bad news is that ITI have supplied them with info showing my holdings amount to 500 Kenmare Resources shares plus a small amount of cash totaling £1200. Naturally these are the shares that were unaccountably left in the Qort a/c when the bulk of my holdings were transferred to the Phoenix platform. I've been back onto HL and they've asked ITI to investigate the mix-up and am awaiting their reply. Funnily enough  I feel quite happy about things only because after months of unanswered e-mails and phone calls I don't feel like the invisible man any more.

johnburman

Jamesram makes an excellent point...YES, Rasputin B, and how were we as ex-Clients of SVS supposed to make representations when the identity of ITI Capital as the intended transferee Broker was with held from us under a spurious veil of secrecy until the deal was done?!!
That was delat in the court hearing (sort of) where this Forum was referred to with the negative comments on a company here identified as ITI as a possible purchaser.  The argument said to the judge was a good one, namely if clients do not like the eventual purchaser they will leave them free of charge during the 3 month 'free to leave ' period. 

Now what was not said to the judge was that the new purchaser is so hopeless [and expensive] that a) all will want to leave and they will not be able to cope and so no one can leave [OK very few] , and b) the bought in whitelabelled IT platform is so awful and they have no staff anyway to deal with issues, and will mess up onboarding, and c) clients will not be able ot trade in the meantime or at all.