SVS Securities - shut down?

jenwrendorset

kencom said:

kencom said:

jenwrendorset said:

kencom said:

Advice required please.

I managed to FINALLY transfer all my cash & most of my holdings from ITI capital to my ii account, BUT i could not transfer 2 of my stocks due to the fact that they were suspended.

I’m hopeful these stocks will return to the market one day so I want to keep auditable possession of them. The trouble is I cannot get share certificates for either share & neither of these share companies are contactable.

When I transferred out of iti they could not transfer these shares, so I left my iti account open to keep the shares in that account.

I’ve contacted iti, but they have not replied.

Any advice greatly welcomed.

Same problem here.  I initially posted here on 25 July (Pg 627) and followed RasputinB's advice however I have received no response from ITI despite giving them a deadline, in fact two deadlines, the second runs out tomorrow.  I included the FCA in my correspondence just to keep them in the loop.  I did wonder about contacting Mark Bentley at ShareSoc, he provided alot of help to ex-SVS clients who were struggling to free themselves from ITI, I would be interested to hear his thoughts on this.  My emails to ITI requested that they return my delisted shares in certified form which I didn't expect to be charged for - I doubt a telephone call would prove any more fruitful but guess I will have to go down that route as well.  My understanding is that LC should not have transferred these shares to ITI because ITI do not deal with AIM-listed shares however over they went and now they are stuck.

I had several other AIM listed shares which were successfully transferred over, it was just the suspended ones that were an issue.

I spoke with a very helpful chap at ITI capital today on 02038898355 regarding my suspended AIM shares stuck with ITI capital.

He said the likelihood of my new broker (interactive investor) accepting these holdings was low. So the only viable scenario he could see was that ITI would still hold them for me (even after they stop dealing), until such time as each of the AIM shares are returned to market or are declared bust.

He is compiling a list of such shares as client contact him, the list currently contains around 13 shares.

Mine are:-
LIONSGOLD LTD (now TALLY LTD)
FRONTERA RESOURCES LTD

Good luck all…

Interesting!! I certainly wouldn't trust ITI to hold anything for me.  I've now submitted a formal complaint to ITI Capital after my previous two emails were ignored, I've also submitted a FOS complaint form as suggested by Mark Bentley of ShareSoc....his response to my conundrum was as follows:

I think you are right, that you ought to obtain certificates for delisted shares that ITI holds on your behalf.

 

ITI have not been completed transparent with you about their closure of retail client accounts. If you look at the FCA website, here: https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000MfGkrAAF#what-can-this-firm-do-restrictions you can see that the FCA has, in fact, forced ITI to do this (no reason for this is stated).

 

If ITI has not responded to your requests, I recommend that you open a complaint with the FOS: https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/ You can also contact the FCA directly, here: https://www.fca.org.uk/contact

I thought the days of complaint forms and ITI Capital were long past but seems not.  I'm going to copy all my correspondence over to FCA tomorrow but I'm melting here at this time so I'm off to the beach/sea.

johnburman

Of course complain to the FOS - why delay?  Also tell the FCA.  the FCA should be kept informed of how ITI "treats customers fairly" (or not ).  This is a FCA regulatory requirement.   

masonic

RasputinB said:

masonic said:

"I note that there doesn't appear to be a deadline on the Reverse Transfer option exercised by RasputinB, which would effectively put the onus back on LC to sort this out for you."

"[ITI] have until the end of this month to complete "all reasonable steps" to get client assets off of their books."

I think that the deadline for a Reverse Transfer was on 22/10/2020
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77708379/#Comment_77708379

I didn't see anything in the Reverse Transfer section of the Distribution Plan, but it looks like it was stated in the "Goodbye Letter" from LC that it was for a period of 3 months following the Settlement Date of 23rd July, as you say.

RasputinB said:

Regarding the second point I wonder if clients who haven't got their assets back will simply be dumped. My understanding is that SVS clients legally "got their assets back" when LC transferred them to ITI Capital. If the clients haven't managed to get around to extracting their holdings from ITI surely it is expecting too much to expect ITI (or their independent third party) to now get transfers of suspended shares executed or certificates etc. on the way before the plug is pulled?

We should take care not to confuse parties here. SVS legally returned all assets to clients on the Settlement Date of the transfer, so thereafter SVS has no liability to clients. ITI on the other hand took on that responsibility at the same time, and, while they remain solvent, are the legal custodians of any remaining assets owned by clients. Clients have a legal claim to those assets until such time as ITI enters administration, at which point clients would have to go through another iteration of the process. If they can get in earlier than that, and extract share certificates with the help of the FOS, so much the better. I don't think anyone has to (or should) relinquish their claim to their assets currently held by ITI.

RasputinB

kencom said:

LIONSGOLD LTD (now TALLY LTD)
FRONTERA RESOURCES LTD

Good luck all…

SVS held 32 holdings of “LIONSGOLD LIMITED - DELISTED 12/11/2018” GG00B3M9KL68 and a total of 4,883,599 shares.

The company broker appears to have been Cornhill Capital.  It may be of interest that this broker was fined £210,000 by the LSE - Cornhill Capital Fined Over AIM Placing - ShareSoc

SVS held 59 holdings of “FRONTERA RESOURCES CORP -LISTING CANCELLED 25/1/19” KYG368131069 and a total of 102,968,794 shares.

The company broker appears to have been W H Ireland. It may be of interest that this broker was fined £1.2 million by the FCA - W H Ireland Limited (fca.org.uk)

The brokers may be able to help regarding contacting the respective registrars?

https://www.pellocapital.com/ and https://www.whirelandplc.com/our-offices/capital-markets-in-london

RasputinB

masonic said:

RasputinB said:

Regarding the second point I wonder if clients who haven't got their assets back will simply be dumped. My understanding is that SVS clients legally "got their assets back" when LC transferred them to ITI Capital. If the clients haven't managed to get around to extracting their holdings from ITI surely it is expecting too much to expect ITI (or their independent third party) to now get transfers of suspended shares executed or certificates etc. on the way before the plug is pulled?

We should take care not to confuse parties here. SVS legally returned all assets to clients on the Settlement Date of the transfer, so thereafter SVS has no liability to clients. ITI on the other hand took on that responsibility at the same time, and, while they remain solvent, are the legal custodians of any remaining assets owned by clients. Clients have a legal claim to those assets until such time as ITI enters administration, at which point clients would have to go through another iteration of the process. If they can get in earlier than that, and extract share certificates with the help of the FOS, so much the better. I don't think anyone has to (or should) relinquish their claim to their assets currently held by ITI.

I agree that no one has to relinquish their claim to their assets currently held by ITI. I was thinking more of the practicalities. Will people be prepared to go through the hassle of insisting that ITI be responsible for returning those assets and do this in time? If ITI goes into administration what hope of claiming compensation through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme when the shares are unlisted and any value difficult, if not impossible, to obtain?
If the unlisted holdings are transferred to a new broker in due course would clients be prepared to pay any holding charges?

masonic

RasputinB said:

masonic said:

RasputinB said:

Regarding the second point I wonder if clients who haven't got their assets back will simply be dumped. My understanding is that SVS clients legally "got their assets back" when LC transferred them to ITI Capital. If the clients haven't managed to get around to extracting their holdings from ITI surely it is expecting too much to expect ITI (or their independent third party) to now get transfers of suspended shares executed or certificates etc. on the way before the plug is pulled?

We should take care not to confuse parties here. SVS legally returned all assets to clients on the Settlement Date of the transfer, so thereafter SVS has no liability to clients. ITI on the other hand took on that responsibility at the same time, and, while they remain solvent, are the legal custodians of any remaining assets owned by clients. Clients have a legal claim to those assets until such time as ITI enters administration, at which point clients would have to go through another iteration of the process. If they can get in earlier than that, and extract share certificates with the help of the FOS, so much the better. I don't think anyone has to (or should) relinquish their claim to their assets currently held by ITI.

I agree that no one has to relinquish their claim to their assets currently held by ITI. I was thinking more of the practicalities. Will people be prepared to go through the hassle of insisting that ITI be responsible for returning those assets and do this in time? If ITI goes into administration what hope of claiming compensation through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme when the shares are unlisted and any value difficult, if not impossible, to obtain?
If the unlisted holdings are transferred to a new broker in due course would clients be prepared to pay any holding charges?

Each client would need to take a view based on their circumstances, but if all ITI is left holding is a small number of delisted shares for a handful of retail clients, then it would be surprising if these were bulk transferred to a new broker rather than rematerialised. It doesn't appear anyone was subjected to their suspended holdings being valued for FSCS compensation rather than returned to them (even if returned in this instance meant passing the buck to another nominee).

If the shares are eventually deemed worthless, either through the companies liquidating or them being valued at 0p for FSCS compensation, then that would create a loss that can be used for CGT relief in the future, whereas until that point they are in limbo. The danger would be in them being declared worthless prematurely and them going on to be relisted, at which point there may be no way to claim them back. That's why I would favour taking a complaint the FOS in order to apply more pressure if ITI is unwilling or unable to fill out a different kind of stock transfer form to have the shares re-registered to the beneficial owner.

RasputinB

masonic said:

RasputinB said:

masonic said:

RasputinB said:

Regarding the second point I wonder if clients who haven't got their assets back will simply be dumped. My understanding is that SVS clients legally "got their assets back" when LC transferred them to ITI Capital. If the clients haven't managed to get around to extracting their holdings from ITI surely it is expecting too much to expect ITI (or their independent third party) to now get transfers of suspended shares executed or certificates etc. on the way before the plug is pulled?

We should take care not to confuse parties here. SVS legally returned all assets to clients on the Settlement Date of the transfer, so thereafter SVS has no liability to clients. ITI on the other hand took on that responsibility at the same time, and, while they remain solvent, are the legal custodians of any remaining assets owned by clients. Clients have a legal claim to those assets until such time as ITI enters administration, at which point clients would have to go through another iteration of the process. If they can get in earlier than that, and extract share certificates with the help of the FOS, so much the better. I don't think anyone has to (or should) relinquish their claim to their assets currently held by ITI.

I agree that no one has to relinquish their claim to their assets currently held by ITI. I was thinking more of the practicalities. Will people be prepared to go through the hassle of insisting that ITI be responsible for returning those assets and do this in time? If ITI goes into administration what hope of claiming compensation through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme when the shares are unlisted and any value difficult, if not impossible, to obtain?
If the unlisted holdings are transferred to a new broker in due course would clients be prepared to pay any holding charges?

Each client would need to take a view based on their circumstances, but if all ITI is left holding is a small number of delisted shares for a handful of retail clients, then it would be surprising if these were bulk transferred to a new broker rather than rematerialised. It doesn't appear anyone was subjected to their suspended holdings being valued for FSCS compensation rather than returned to them (even if returned in this instance meant passing the buck to another nominee).

If the shares are eventually deemed worthless, either through the companies liquidating or them being valued at 0p for FSCS compensation, then that would create a loss that can be used for CGT relief in the future, whereas until that point they are in limbo. The danger would be in them being declared worthless prematurely and them going on to be relisted, at which point there may be no way to claim them back. That's why I would favour taking a complaint the FOS in order to apply more pressure if ITI is unwilling or unable to fill out a different kind of stock transfer form to have the shares re-registered to the beneficial owner.

I agree that it should be possible to rematerialise shares but kencom did say that "I cannot get share certificates for either share & neither of these share companies are contactable". I doubt that ITI or their third party / administrators will try any harder but I am happy to be proved wrong.
I also agree about taking a complaint to the FOS in order to apply more pressure on ITI.
The data from LC's transfer list shows that there were about 2,700 holdings marked as delisted / unlisted / in administration / cancelled / suspended etc. I wonder how many of those have actually been dealt with and suspect that many are still on ITI's dubious QORT system. My guess is that most holders have written them off. or will, do so.
Regarding valuation for CGT losses I know that HMRC have a list of shares deemed to be of Nil Value. The timing and value of crystallised loss for the type of share we are talking about would probably come down to negotiation so, yes, a value of 0p for FSCS compensation would help. What I normally do is to take a view, fully document it on my Tax Return, and if HMRC don't come back to me then I assume their agreement. If the amount of tax is significant then I'd try to get a preliminary view from them.

johnburman

This all makes interesting reading, but cannot the advice be:

1)   hold ITI responsible for 'holding' the shares; at least until they are formally declared nil value; and
2)   claim on the FOS anyway for:

       a)   ITI's refusal to deal* etc.; and
       b)   the inconvenience caused by a) etc. anyway?

*This must be contrary to treating clients fairly (as well as breach of contract?) by ITI.

RasputinB

johnburman said:

This all makes interesting reading, but cannot the advice be:

1)   hold ITI responsible for 'holding' the shares; at least until they are formally declared nil value; and
2)   claim on the FOS anyway for:

       a)   ITI's refusal to deal* etc.; and
       b)   the inconvenience caused by a) etc. anyway?

*This must be contrary to treating clients fairly (as well as breach of contract?) by ITI.

I don't see that it is a problem if clients are happy for ITI to hold the shares (unless they go into administration / cease) but if they want to transfer / get the certificates and ITI don't respond then that is a problem which, IMO, should be taken to the FOS straight away (or after the 8 weeks or whatever).
If the shares are unlisted / suspended then it is hardly ITI's fault if they can't be traded and similarly if they are, or become, valueless. 
There would be an argument for treating clients unfairly if those with complaints with the FOS got their transfers / share certificates and those not complaining didn't. But compensation for nil value shares?
But a point that I have been trying to make (no doubt badly) is that there are a lot of these shares and very few official complaints. To me that doesn't add up - unless most clients are prepared to write them of, or ITI have in fact got up to date with transfers.

jenwrendorset

RasputinB said:

johnburman said:

This all makes interesting reading, but cannot the advice be:

1)   hold ITI responsible for 'holding' the shares; at least until they are formally declared nil value; and
2)   claim on the FOS anyway for:

       a)   ITI's refusal to deal* etc.; and
       b)   the inconvenience caused by a) etc. anyway?

*This must be contrary to treating clients fairly (as well as breach of contract?) by ITI.

I don't see that it is a problem if clients are happy for ITI to hold the shares (unless they go into administration / cease) but if they want to transfer / get the certificates and ITI don't respond then that is a problem which, IMO, should be taken to the FOS straight away (or after the 8 weeks or whatever).
If the shares are unlisted / suspended then it is hardly ITI's fault if they can't be traded and similarly if they are, or become, valueless. 
There would be an argument for treating clients unfairly if those with complaints with the FOS got their transfers / share certificates and those not complaining didn't. But compensation for nil value shares?
But a point that I have been trying to make (no doubt badly) is that there are a lot of these shares and very few official complaints. To me that doesn't add up - unless most clients are prepared to write them of, or ITI have in fact got up to date with transfers.

I'm not happy with ITI holding anything of ours because my gut feeling is that they may cease trading anytime soon so I've sent off an official complaint to compliance@iticapital.com as 'suggested' by LC, this follows the 2 emails which they have failed to reply to bar the automatic response; I've completed 2 complaint forms to FOS (covering the 2 accounts), I've also completed 2 complaint forms to the FCA and finished it all off with yet another email to LC as they didn't bother to answer the one question I asked......don't think there is anything further to do but sit back and let them get on with it....both FOS and FCA have acknowledged receipt and the latter has included case numbers so watch this space.  I'm not looking for compensation or anything like that, all I want are the 2 share certificates that prove our ownership of these holdings and that task can only be attributed to ITI Capital.