SVS Securities - shut down?

RasputinB

Michael_Reynolds said:

Clearly we have been asleep at the wheel where LC are concerned. They have walked all over us at every stage in the proceedings ..

Now we know that we should have been at every meeting we could have attended!

Who nominated the members of the Creditors' Committee?

Should XO clients have been given the opportunity?

I'm sure LC would have covered their backsides on this and I'll try to look through the paperwork later but I can't remember being asked if I'd like to nominate a member.

Jamesram

Michael_Reynolds said:

Ths is worth reading:
 https://www.intellinews.com/uralsib-s-london-business-vanishes-to-stardust-after-sale-119316/

It certainly does Michael, than you very much. Everyone interested in "how we got to here" should read it in my view, so I have  reproduced it here: 3 Things immediately strike me about the piece:

1) It explains how ITI Capital managed  to get into the licensed UK brokerage business with FCA and LSE approval: they just bought  "off the peg an"  arm of  a Russian bank with those attributes -  Pavel Naumenko, CEO of ITI Group, said "the acquisition of a fully licensed UK broker" is a huge step for his firm.

2) It clarifies ITI Capital's antecedents, and its notes the strong Russian  presence : The deal was co-financed by Da Vinci Capital, a private equity manager based in Moscow headed by Oleg Jelezko.....According to its website, Guernsey-based ITI Group is a brokerage firm focusing on technology and algorithmic trading, and providing “selected buy-side products” in the partnership with ITI Funds. As part of the deal, filings show that Jelezko will become a director at ITI Capital.  Pavel Naumenko, CEO of ITI Group, said ........ “It cements our commitment to taking a leading position among brokers with a strong Russian and international presence,”

3) It raises questions (as very recently echoed on this Board) as to the motives and end-game of ITI Capital
“The bank has a bunch of guys doing virtually nothing for the past two years but sit around in prime London office space. The bank had previously employed 25 people in its London office and was the Russian partner to prestigious New York brokerage Auerbach Grayson. The lease of its offices on the 33rd floor of the prestigious Tower 42 (formerly the NatWest Tower) is understood to cost around £4mn a year to maintain and is expected to be far too extravagant for the new owners, insiders said."

Well we know they are still there. We also know that ITI Capital made losses of £millions in its last posted accounts, 2017, 2018.

So what is going on? Is the business solvent and a going concern NOW (as opposed to just being propped up by Da Vinci)? And why, if a financial journalist was able to report on all this quite easily in April 2017, how was it that all the people supposedly protecting the interests of all SVS clients were apparently pursuaded that ITI Capital was an appropriate broker- ie what was ITI Capital doing in 2019  to demonstrate that it had the existing systems, staff, financial stability to be able to take on this realtively huge new client base? [and remember, it was quoting a client base of 35,000 worldwide- how many clients were with the London office I wonder?]

These are questions only an independent investigation could determine- will it be by the government, government agency, or media I wonder- or just no one at all.

Uralsib's London business vanishes to stardust after sale

Uralsib's London business vanishes to stardust after sale to brokerage.

By Jason Corcoran in London April 11, 2017

The Uralsib name in London has gone up in a puff of smoke after the Russian lender sold its subsidiary for an undisclosed sum to an emerging markets brokerage firm.

bne IntelliNews had reported exclusively in October last year that the parent lender had put its London business up for sale, effectively uprooting the mysticism-laden legacy of its ex-billionaire founder Nikolai Tsvetkov.

As part of the sale, the Uralsib brand – synonymous with the unconventional world of Tsvetkov – has been dropped in favour of ITI Capital. The deal was co-financed by Da Vinci Capital, a private equity manager based in Moscow headed by Oleg Jelezko, who made a mint punting on the RTS before its merger with Micex. 

According to its website, Guernsey-based ITI Group is a brokerage firm focusing on technology and algorithmic trading, and providing “selected buy-side products” in the partnership with ITI Funds. As part of the deal, filings show that Jelezko will become a director at ITI Capital. 

Pavel Naumenko, CEO of ITI Group, said the acquisition of a fully licensed UK broker is a huge step for his firm. “It cements our commitment to taking a leading position among brokers with a strong Russian and international presence,” he said.

Naumenko is an old Moscow banking hand who worked at Promsvyazbank, Sberbank, Merill Lynch and Renaisance Capital, where he is likely to have known Jelezko.

Uralsib veteran John Lewin surprisingly retains his role as chief executive of the London operation after the buyout. His team has been pared back to the bone by a Moscow parent anxious to cut costs. “We see robust synergies between ITI Group and Uralsib’s core products,” Lewin said in a statement.

The Moscow parent Uralsib, which has ties to President Vladimir Putin, stopped its English-language research daily last year and discontinued some of its Russian-language products, sources close to the bank told bne IntelliNews in October.  Most analysts and production staff, who were based in Moscow, were laid off.

Uralsib, once Russia’s fifth-largest bank by assets, has been roiled by mismanagement, the collapse in commodity prices and the fallout from sanctions against the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine. Founder Tsvetkov surrendered control in November 2015 as part of a bailout, after a year of the bank being on the edge of bankruptcy and under threat of having its licence revoked.

“The writing has been on the wall for the UK business since the bank changed hands,” a source close to Uralsib told bne IntelliNews. “The bank has a bunch of guys doing virtually nothing for the past two years but sit around in prime London office space.”

The bank had previously employed 25 people in its London office and was the Russian partner to prestigious New York brokerage Auerbach Grayson. The lease of its offices on the 33rd floor of the prestigious Tower 42 (formerly the NatWest Tower) is understood to cost around £4mn a year to maintain and is expected to be far too extravagant for the new owners, insiders said.

Tsvetkov, a former Soviet Air Force officer who is a fan of mysticism, paid the sky-high rent because “the building looks like a rocket ship to the stars”, a former staffer told bne IntelliNews. The office, which takes up the south-facing side of the building with a panoramic view over the River Thames towards the Houses of Parliament, was even decorated with space motifs. “It is the ideal feng shui location,” said the former exec.

As part of Uralsib’s rescue – or “sanitation” as it’s known in Russian – the state extended an RUB81bn ($1.3bn) lifeline to the bank and allowed entrepreneur Vladimir Kogan, a close ally of Putin, to take a 82% stake.

Meanwhile, Tsvetkov was left with a minority holding and is believed to have withdrawn from the business to focus on his spirituality and personal research. In a profile last year, bne IntelliNews revealed how revelations and mysticism were stock-in-trade of his management style.

My2penneth

toad333 said:

I've just settled a trade from August 2019. It seems to have cost £29.46 (can't be sure since the ITI's portal is as clear as mud). But a bit of assuming and arithmetic would suggest that's the cost.
The original trade cost £7.95. Shouldn't ITI be charging me the cost of the original trade? And if not, can I claim the difference from the FSCS?
Also, I'm missing the dividends for the shares that were unsettled. Any ideas what happened to the dividends from unsettled trades?
As usual, no answers from ITI.

This whole rigmarole would make a good story for BBC's Money Box.

ITI overcharged me. I complained to them ( my computer has a special button marked " complain to ITI" but it's hard to read as the letters are rubbing off). After a while, they reimbursed the overcharge. There was no email or letter from them, I just noticed a Phoenix transaction which was for a transfer in of funds. So, complain to accounts management. 

My2penneth

pafpcg said:

Jamesram said:

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!

Eh?  My original specialist subject was thin-film toroidal drives for continuously-variable-ratio automotive transmissions, but since my thesis was nearly half-a-century ago, I guess it's now just "grumpy old man"!

Coventry?

rnf11

Michael_Reynolds said:

Ths is worth reading:
 https://www.intellinews.com/uralsib-s-london-business-vanishes-to-stardust-after-sale-119316/

Key phrase in light of what has since emerged:-

" His team has been pared back to the bone by a Moscow parent anxious to cut costs."

Ho hum.

rnf11

Still no cash coming out to accompany the transferred holdings.

Those who believe it to be just a matter of waiting for the "last dividend", just which one do they think it will be, and when is it due to be paid? There can be a very long gap between the "record date" and corresponding "pay date" with many companies.

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

Michael_Reynolds said:

Clearly we have been asleep at the wheel where LC are concerned. They have walked all over us at every stage in the proceedings ..

Now we know that we should have been at every meeting we could have attended!

Who nominated the members of the Creditors' Committee?

Should XO clients have been given the opportunity?

I'm sure LC would have covered their backsides on this and I'll try to look through the paperwork later but I can't remember being asked if I'd like to nominate a member.

This was covered in the 25 September 2019 JSA proposals document:

If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else to be elected to the Creditors' Committee, please submit your nomination in advance of the Initial Meeting to the Administrators' office at c/o Leonard Curtis, 5th Floor, Grove House, 248a Marylebone Road, London NW1 6BB or by email to svsproxy@leonardcurtis.co.uk.

ahouse185

I managed to get some money withdrawn from ITI last week and on Monday, having had enough of this mess, I rang the ITI dealing room and sold all my shares. The dealing room answered quickly and were very polite and chatty. They emailed me the details of each trade but now I wait with baited breath to see when the money appears in my cash account, at which time I shall submit another cash withdrawal.
Where I have come across real names, I have emailed my thanks and my understanding that as employees the ITI problems are not of their making and that I understand the stress that they are under. It works wonders and one individual said that I had made their day by saying thank you.

coyrls

eskbanker said:

RasputinB said:

Michael_Reynolds said:

Clearly we have been asleep at the wheel where LC are concerned. They have walked all over us at every stage in the proceedings ..

Now we know that we should have been at every meeting we could have attended!

Who nominated the members of the Creditors' Committee?

Should XO clients have been given the opportunity?

I'm sure LC would have covered their backsides on this and I'll try to look through the paperwork later but I can't remember being asked if I'd like to nominate a member.

This was covered in the 25 September 2019 JSA proposals document:

If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else to be elected to the Creditors' Committee, please submit your nomination in advance of the Initial Meeting to the Administrators' office at c/o Leonard Curtis, 5th Floor, Grove House, 248a Marylebone Road, London NW1 6BB or by email to svsproxy@leonardcurtis.co.uk.

And discussed in this very thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76331192#Comment_76331192

sweetsand

ahouse185 said:

I managed to get some money withdrawn from ITI last week and on Monday, having had enough of this mess, I rang the ITI dealing room and sold all my shares. The dealing room answered quickly and were very polite and chatty. They emailed me the details of each trade but now I wait with baited breath to see when the money appears in my cash account, at which time I shall submit another cash withdrawal.
Where I have come across real names, I have emailed my thanks and my understanding that as employees the ITI problems are not of their making and that I understand the stress that they are under. It works wonders and one individual said that I had made their day by saying thank you.

Indeed. Often, like stated here many times, the front line staff are just earning a crust and polite but can only do so much.
If you have not complained to the financial ombudsman, you should as this is disgraceful.