SVS Securities - shut down?

Beckett332

A quick reverse image search on the profile pictures for the glowing TrustPilot reviews show them to be royalty-free stock photos.

pafpcg

This morning I received confirmation from my SVS-replacement broker (Jarvis X-O) that funds credited a few days ago to my cash account as "Payment received" were from ITI and matched the dividend on one of my share holdings which was distributed last November after the shares had been transferred to my new broker.

After almost eighteen months since SVS went into administration, I am relieved to finally report that the process of transferring my assets and cash to the broker of my choice is now complete.  The good news is that all the assets held by SVS remained intact and the cash held by SVS and together with accumulated dividends matches my expectation.  The bad news is that the SVS administrators (LC) charged FSCS such huge fees (which ultimately we'll all have to pay for indirectly) and the frustration and aggravation of the process for recovering the assets.  I think we all thought that LC were slow in their procedures, but what's remarkable is that LC had reconciled the SVS accounts and identified a broker (ITI) to take on the SVS clients within six months (Aug 2019-January 2020), only for it to take at least another whole year, from January 2020 to today, to get that replacement broker to take-over the SVS-held assets and to respond to the requests of clients - a process that has yet to complete for some clients.  All that remains now of this sorry saga is for me to nag ITI to issue the statements for tax returns, to follow-up formal complaints about ITI's failures and to badger the FCA and my MP to tighten-up the monitoring of "authorised" financial companies.

I too echo the thanks for the combined efforts of all the contributors to this thread and to wish a speedy resolution for those still waiting.

My2penneth

Tax statements will be the next problem area...won't it? 

johnburman

I can't believe that ITI will issue tax receipts. But will be that be good for me or bad. It will be iti s fault... In as much as hmrc will accept the concept of fault of anyone other than the taxpayer! 

sweeter_strudel

I think the other issue, alongside tax info is the paper certificates for holdings that no-one else will accept so cannot be transferred out. Has anyone managed to receive anything yet?

Eastneuk

Has anyone undertaken a reconciliation of dividends that they were meant to have received from their shareholdings? I have undertaken such an exercise which obviously proved very difficult given the lack of information available from the ITI systems. Some of the recent dividend information seems to be correct, but the information between the transfer of my portfolios (3) to ITI and when my portfolios were loaded onto the Phoenix platform is missing. 

I have used the starting point being the letter form LC sent out in late May 2020 giving my position and all corporate actions (i.e. dividend payments) and then built a spreadsheet of dividend payment dates and amounts (thank you Hargreaves Lansdown who have all the information on their webpage!) and then expected cashflow which should in theory match the cash sitting on my account. Needless to say they don't reconcile.

What is interesting (and something I should have picked up 9 months ago) is that some of the dividends that were due to be paid in early May 2020 did not appear in my Client Statement from LC. This might well be a timing issue as in the main the record keeping of LC seems to have been very good, but as a matter of interest, did anyone have any shares in Scottish Investment Trust (EPIC SCIN) or Shroder Oriental Income Fund (EPIC SOI)? Schroder's dividend of £0.019 per share was meant to have been paid on 7th May 2020 which was prior to my statement date of 18th May 2020. The dividend due to be paid on 14th February 2020 was recoded as having been paid on that date.

RasputinB

sweeter_strudel said:

I think the other issue, alongside tax info is the paper certificates for holdings that no-one else will accept so cannot be transferred out. Has anyone managed to receive anything yet?

Regarding tax certificates; there may be no regulatory obligation for ITI to supply these?

ITI's current excuse on paper certificates is that due to the lockdown they have not been getting into the office. Leonard Curtis are supposedly discussing this with them on behalf of those who elected for a reverse transfer.

Gavin_Bl

Hi,
I can see I am a very late comer to this party, after banging my head against a wall with ITI - they claim that due to the pandemic they cannot issue share certificates (yeah, ok), and that I can either stay with them (there aren't enough LOL's in the world), sell up, or transfer out.

I only have 3000 Lloyds shares in there, and the share price has halved since the pandemic, so really don't want to crystallise that loss - so that leaves transferring out. I've seen a couple of providers, but for the low value of the shares - about £1000 - the charges are v. high in % terms.

Could anyone recommend a reasonably priced provider that I could transfer these shares to - whether an ISA or other type of account? 

many thanks, Gavin

Gavin_Bl

ah don't worry, I've spotted a suitable firm, thanks anyway

My2penneth

Just contacted ITI. They seem to be working in the office .....judging by the laughing and general noise in the background of the call. It's good to think they are having a nice time at work...bit of a laff with your work colleagues,  eh!