SVS Securities - shut down?

masonic

jenwrendorset said:

Further update but no further forward......I emailed LC re. lack of response etc from ITI and also queried why LC saw fit to transfer      AIM listed shares to a company (ITI Capital) which did not deal with AIM listed shares - I was unaware of this until I queried with ITI why these shares were languishing in a Quort account and others had moved to the Phoenix account.  Response from LC was as expected.....

"I can confirm that your positions in xxxxxxxxxxxxx were transferred to ITI Capital Limited (“ITI”) in accordance with the terms of the sales and purchase agreement agreed upon by both the ITI and SVS Securities PLC (In Special Administration), acting by way of its Special Administrators.

As a client of ITI, it is for ITI to execute your request for a certificated copy of your shareholding."

In other words, we might have caused the problem but we're wiping our hands of it now.....nothing to do with us!!!  Why am I surprised.  Needless to say they didn't answer the question as to why these shares were transferred over - knowing what I know now I feel that I should have been alerted to the facts and given the opportunity to obtain a share certificate at that point. 

Deadline has now passed for ITI to respond so back to the drawing board....I'm not looking for compensation, all I want is for them to supply a certificate (or in our case 2 certificates) so we have an auditable account of our holdings; it might be wishful thinking that this company will return to the market one day but that is always a possibility.

They have a point. ITI were provided with access to the electronic database to see what they would be receiving. They need only fill out a stock transfer form and send it to the relevant registrar. They have clearly managed to fill out CREST transfer forms to move AIM shares to other brokers. It is simply a slightly different form and process to rematerialise the share certificates.

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. There is also the requirement imposed by the FCA that "ITI Capital Limited must appoint an independent third party (the identity of which must be agreed by the FCA prior to such appointment), by 15 June 2022 to oversee by no later than 30 September 2022 (or a date agreed with the independent third party to the satisfaction of the FCA), the orderly closure of ITI Capital Limited’s retail client services and the return (or transfer if appropriate to another provider’s custodian) of all retail client monies and custody assets."

They have until the end of this month to complete "all reasonable steps" to get client assets off of their books. It seems like applying for share certificates on your behalf is a reasonable step they could complete in that timeframe.

To me it still looks like the Financial Ombudsman Service is the best route by which to get things done.

Sheris

Emillion1 said:

Sheris said:

eskbanker

The FCA and LC was after the highest bidder in terms of monies, with no respect to the clients of SVS.
No homework or detail into ITI past history, should have accepted a lower bidder with a history for the transfer.
Incompetent is a understatement for the FCA and LC with unprofessional common sense what was always going to be the outcome.            

There was another bidder who wanted to keep the same technologies in place which would have been merely a paperwork exercise for the clients. 

A member of staff for LC in a telephone conversation many months after the so called special transfer, in his words and on the front line, stated that looking back at the start, a more successful change over for clients selecting there own broker, with transfers in batches to who every they wanted if possible, could have been completed in 2 months, just shows how bad this has been executed by the FCA to allow LC to do what they wish, with the so called committee.      

kencom

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.

kencom

Thanks for the responses so far.

Just to be clear... Yes, 2 different sets of AIM shares which are currently suspended, but hopeful of a return, potentially a significant sum of money involved too, if they do return.

I just want them transferred, or evidence that they exist & belong to me. I have taken screen prints for now.

I will call both iti capital & interactive investor (my current broker) on Friday, but I'm not hopeful from iti based on my previous experience.

I'll post here how it goes...

RasputinB

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

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?

kencom

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…

johnburman

a very helpful chap at ITI capital - well that is an improvement over the last two years!

What a hopeless shambles of a company it was - will there be any investigation (by anyone - come on FT or Financial Advisor) into the SVS move to ITI fiasco?  

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.