SVS Securities - shut down?

LEAR1

shawdon said:

Progress report and some hope for us long-suffering inmates, i now have 2 accounts out of 10 transferred to HL although these are still missing the dividends which i am told will follow soon! Very slow progress and of course no communication at all from ITI who are still showing all the shares that have now been moved to HL as still listed in Phoenix. Maybe i should try to sell them all and see what happens!

Since you say the dividends are missing (rather than the entire cash balance), have you managed to get the latter transferred over? In other words, is it just the dividends since 23 July that you are awaiting, and your original cash balance that ITI received from LC has been moved?

LEAR1

RasputinB said:

In my Qort account I have three tabs. Portfolio, Transaction History and  Cash Statement.
Portfolio does show my holdings.
Transaction History only shows the details for shares that I sold at ITI.
Cash Statement includes "Income/Write off profits on financial instrument" which I have reconciled to some dividends received. My balance figure in Cash Statement doesn't make sense.
Above the tabs there are two GBP (£) entries and a USD ($) entry.
The USD amount matches a dividend which they received in USD.
The positive GBP (£) entry less the negative GBP (£) entry equates near enough to what I expect my balance figure to be but there are dividends that should have been posted to my account but haven't.
There is nothing in my Phoenix account; presumably because they know that I will be transferring to another broker or asking for a reverse transfer to LC.
Hope that helps!

I have those tabs too, but no entries within any of them. Above these I have two GBP entries only (but never held USD shares, so that explains why that figure is missing). But both my GBP entries are positive. They're close, in total, to what cash I would expect to be there, but not exactly - so I guess it's another case of ITI fun and games making us guess how it all reconciles!

Jamesram

pafpcg said At the risk of being thought a lurking troll, here's a question about whether ITI have a fiduciary duty to ALL ex-SVS clients:  I declined to accept ITI's Terms of Business at the initial login (August 5th) and opted for an immediate transfer-out.  I don't regard myself as a client of ITI and ITI can argue that I'm not a client;  what duty does ITI have towards me and any other refuseniks?

Reply: LC 's cheery 12/06/2020 "Goodbye Letter to Transferring Clients" SAID:-

"The Transfer will take place in accordance with (i) the Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations 2011 ("IBSAR"), being the legislative regime governing SVS' special administration, (ii) the sale and purchase agreement entered into between SVS, ITI and the Administrators on 16 March 2020 ("SPA") and (iii) the Court order obtained sanctioning the Distribution Plan and client money order on 7 May 2020 (the "Court Order").
Key features of the Transfer – what does it mean for you? 1. You will become ITI's client on 11 June 2020 ("Completion") and your assets and money will transfer from SVS to ITI on 19 June 2020 automatically without any further action required from you. Other than where informed otherwise, you should receive the entirety of your client money and assets. 2. Following Completion, ITI will need a period of up to 6 weeks to finalise preparing its systems to operate your client money and assets and conclude its on-boarding checks (the "Settlement Date"). This means that you are expected to have access to your client money and assets from 23 July 2020. You will be able to start trading through ITI from this date. Alternatively you may transfer to a different third party broker, free of charge for a period of 6 months from the Settlement Date. 3. On the Settlement Date [ie 23 July 2020] you will become subject to ITI's terms of business (retail client terms1 or professional client terms2). However, should you elect to remain with ITI, you will be subject to the same fee and charging structure under SVS' terms of business (as at 5 August 2019) for a period of 3 months from the Settlement Date. 4. You will be permitted to request to transfer back to SVS for a period of 3 months following the Settlement Date ("Reverse Transfer"). The implication of a Reverse Transfer is that you would remain a client of SVS (which is in special administration) and would therefore experience a delay in gaining access to your client money and assets."

1 https://iticapital.com/assets/pdf/Terms-of-Business-Retail-Client-October

pafpcg - I am not fooled by your apparently  innocuous approach- I can see that you are trying to get me to commit to an opinion on the Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations 2011 ("IBSAR"), which I assume will then  turn out to be your specialist subject on which you will roast me!

Look, seriously all I can say is that according to the above LC Letter none of us had a choice but to become a client of ITI on 23 July 2020 on their T&Cs, unless and until termination of that Broker/Client relationship which in your case you achieved by declining the continuation of that relationship on 5 August 2020. I don't know technically what the precise basis of the relationship between you and ITI has been after 5 August- if that becomes important we would need to trawl through the Regulations, the SPA and the Court Order and possibly the ITI T&Cs that bound you even though you never agreed to them.

All of which I would of course be happy to look into right now, but I have just been called in for my tea.

ITI has an ongoing duty of care to administer your investments properly and report to you, and I don't believe that your decision to decline a future  ITI trading account on 5 August  out has any real and material affect on your situation, as compared to those who "signed on" and then decided to bail out after the woeful Phoenix accounts and lack of client care emerged. a few days or weeks later.

shawdon

LEAR1 said:

shawdon said:

Progress report and some hope for us long-suffering inmates, i now have 2 accounts out of 10 transferred to HL although these are still missing the dividends which i am told will follow soon! Very slow progress and of course no communication at all from ITI who are still showing all the shares that have now been moved to HL as still listed in Phoenix. Maybe i should try to sell them all and see what happens!

Since you say the dividends are missing (rather than the entire cash balance), have you managed to get the latter transferred over? In other words, is it just the dividends since 23 July that you are awaiting, and your original cash balance that ITI received from LC has been moved?

Good question, just to clarify, i withdrew all of my pre 23rd July dividends before the transfer to HL (not an easy process of course with ITI) so it is just the latest dividends i am waiting for such as VOD and RDS etc.

Michael_Reynolds

olderbutnowiser said:
"My recollection was that there was a client member with a Chinese name who was doubtless representing the minority FX traders and not the majority of us XO clients.

I smelled a rat then and events have proved how disastrous it was not having someone who could point out that the client base should have been split and suitable brokers found for the two distinctly separate types of clients."

I'm wondering who decided the election of the SVS client member of the creditors committee? As you say the FX traders with SVS would have represented a very small minority of the 20,000 client accounts?

Michael_Reynolds

Jamesram said:

"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."

Welcome back James. It's great that you are working with Citywire. Thank you. We so badly need more to draw more attention to our dire situation. I wrote politely on Monday to Andrew Poxon and Alex Cadwallader requesting detailed information regarding the identity and selection process for the Creditors Committee. No reply yet! I complained to our mutual friend Oleg (Chairman of Davinci) last Sat that a further week had elapsed without any progress and received another of his empty promise replies the same day as follows:

Dear Michael,

Just to confirm that I have received your email.

I am copying David Moss, the Head of compliance and Rahul Agrawal, the Head of private clients team.

ITI had to deal with a backlog of client transfer requests since the start of SVS migration, please accept our apologies with any delays.

ITI also can take buy or sell orders from any of its SVS clients via the phone or online through Phoenix platform.

We will check status today, I am sure our operations will do their best to provide an immediate assistance, and will also provide the explanation and clarification on your previous requests.

Best Regards,

Oleg.

Michael_Reynolds

Josl said:

My guess this one represented clients: 

Mr Salam Alaswad

https://www.expertwitness.co.uk/expert/5dc2a4c878ad1f4a048b4567
Email: salam.alaswad@fxandcfd.com

Thank you for this. I will now ask LC to clarify which member of the Creditors Committee was supposed to represent the SVS Clients and on what basis that selection was made. If Salam Alaswad was indeed an SVS Client then reading his CV he clearly was selected because he was an FX trader?

My2penneth

Just had a phone call from a guy called Chris (a self employed advisor) who was hoping to raise awareness about SVS and possible compo claim.

How did he get my number?

He rang on 02034760393

RasputinB

My2penneth said:

Just had a phone call ...How did he get my number?

Maybe Leonard Curtis or ITI Capital haven't been properly protecting our personal information?

LEAR1

My2penneth said:

Just had a phone call from a guy called Chris (a self employed advisor) who was hoping to raise awareness about SVS and possible compo claim.

How did he get my number?

He rang on 02034760393

Had exactly the same - though he called himself 'Peter'. Said that 'we had spoken in the past and found my number in his old notes' blah blah. He even had a reputable sounding tone, rather than the crass nature of some of the callers I've had in the past. I'm amazed they're not striking us off their list once they realise we're not taking their bait.