SVS Securities - shut down?

olderbutnowiser

manorhouse wrote: »

I thought i would let everyone know i received an e-mail direct from a Kevin Martin at SVS Settlements team.
Today @ 3pm
Informing me of a corporate action in Barrick Gold.
How odd as i have hundreds of different shares with them and there must of been a few C.A since August !!

That's interesting. I also own GOLD and have not heard anything. Could you kindly let me know what CA was mentioned in the email. They have recently published results and announced an increased dividend but I was not aware of anything else that would directly affect us.

manorhouse

The mail i received from SVS yesterday was C.A.....ACACIA MINING .
Appears in September 2019 ..Arrangement were i received 0.168 Barrick for each one.
( it went on to say they held with them in certificate form ?? )
I have e-mailed back as i own hundreds of different shares and am aware of CA in some others since this mess started.

olderbutnowiser

That explains it - the CA is related to Acacia shares and not Barrick's.


Looks like they are slowly getting around to dealing with the CA that has taken place over the past 3+ months.

Danie5

Where do I find the message saying that the client portal will be operating on 11 Nov? I can't find it on the LC website.

manted

They took the message down sometime on Friday. I don't know why - but doesn't inspire confidence.
It was in the revolving updates section at the top.They mentioned the expectation for the portal was week of 11th November.

manorhouse

A friend mentioned the portal being available in next few weeks ( maybe he read it here , maybe not )
I received another e-mail today about CTR holding.
So they are contacting clients now about C.A.s... its an improvement .

NZPK

I checked in on the Leonard Curtis SVS site this morning for any new or updates and I see there is a message there from the administrators warning all clients of unauthorised text messages being sent to SVS clients about pensions transfered into SVS. These texts appear to be part of a fraud attempt and should be ignored.

The point out that they are getting a cease and desist letter drafted and will be notifying the authorities. By that I presume the police.

So be careful folks. Double check anything you receive by phone, text, email or otherwise. Its best to check with LC before acting on anything.

Danie5

Yesterday I have received an E-mail response to my enquiry from LC in which they say that the client portal will hopefully be operating by the end of next week. We will receive login details and passwords beforehand. Thereafter we will get 30 days to log complaints. If satisfied we can just click a box and everything will be automatic thereafter. This will take us up to mid to late December.
In the meantime they are still negotiating with various brokers with a view to hopefully transferring all accounts to a single broker. They envisage being in a position to transfer accounts early in Q1 2020 after the bar date has concluded. I suppose that the High Court must then provide their blessing and hopefully all the trouble can be over by sometime in February 2020?
They say that Winterflood are aware of the timescale and have indicated to several clients that they are willing to wait for the transfer of outstanding trades. They recommend liaison with Winterflood as this may not be applicable to all cases.

johnburman

Looks like from Danie5, the log in to the portal will be delayed a wekk/10 days

And no word on who the chosen new broker is (why not?)

And they are not keeping the intranet website up to date. (why not?)

Some 'good news' is to go on Companies House Beta and see the state of the SVS Statement of Affairs. It all looks a bit of a mess to me.

johnburman

FROM FT ADVISOR (SLIGHTLY OLD NEWS)

===

Failed wealth manager owes HMRC almost £800,000
By Rachel Mortimer

A wealth manager which failed following intervention from the regulator owes the taxman and its own employees the best part of £1m.

SVS Securities PLC entered special administration in August after the Financial Conduct Authority identified "serious concerns" about the way in which the business was operating, including some clients paying fees and charges as high as 20 per cent of their total investment.

In September administrators at Leonard Curtis confirmed the "quickest and most cost effective" way to return assets and money to SVS clients would be to transfer the company's assets to another interest broker.

Leonard Curtis is currently in the process of deciding which broker this will be, with more than 100 companies originally interested in the SVS clients.

But according to documents published on the Companies House website this month the company still owed £770,781 to HM Revenue and Customs and £98,794 to its employees.

The FCA first intervened at SVS when it conducted "urgent" supervisory work after receiving a tip-off about the assets in which the company was investing the money of its clients, with the watchdog consequently instructing the wealth manager to cease all regulated activities.

The regulator found it was targeting IFAs to promote its model portfolios to clients after a defined benefit pension transfer or Sipp switch and said the proportion of illiquid and high-risk bonds in its model portfolios were unlikely to match these clients' needs.

Despite administrators putting plans in place to return client funds through a third party broker Leonard Curtis has previously warned the cost of this process would be "material".

This cost will ultimately be paid out of custody assets and client money - meaning customers would therefore face shortfalls as a result of SVS entering into special administration.

The administrators said they expected the "vast majority" of clients to be fully compensated by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for any costs of transferring their custody assets and money.

But they warned there might be a "small number" of clients who may face shortfalls in their funds, either because they are not eligible for FSCS compensation or because their loss exceeds the FSCS compensation limit of £85,000.