Treating Customers Fairly?
Posted by robin in Financial Articles Friday September 25, 2009 6:08 pm
“Treating Customers Fairly.” That was the banner under which the FSA launched an initiative last year to improve the professional conduct of financial advisers.
To those advisers who have only ever tried to do right by their clients, it was a little bemusing - a statement of the obvious. The regulator, however, saw the need to enforce a decent soul in financial organisations deemed devoid of one. TCF must now be stamped on processes, literature, training and culture to instil satisfactory client “outcomes”.
Away from the glass towers of Canary Wharf in the streets below, after nine months of exhaustive enquiries Narinder and Vijay Sood are still seeking a satisfactory outcome for an investment gone wrong…
The story begins with a business sale. After decades of hard work and long hours the Soods successfully sold their grocery business in early 2005 and retired. They are debt free and during their working years had never invested in anything more than bank deposits.
Following the conclusion of the sale, Mr Sood recalls being tipped the wink by his accountant, at Doshi & Co. that he could get him 10% interest on his money. It was an attractive rate at a time when bank base was under half that and he placed implicit trust in his accountant. This, in spite of the fact his accountant was not licensed to give investment advice. Also, in 2001, he had reportedly been banned from being a director for 12 years and ordered to repay £2m following the demise of a wine import business. Mr Sood was aware of this history.
The accountant put him in contact with an IFA at Doshi Financial Services Ltd, a company owned and controlled by his wife and trading from the same premises.
The IFA, Mr Valjinder Virdee, duly relieved the Soods of £100,000 from the sale proceeds of their business. The investment presented by the IFA was in a 5-year bond. The “Asset-Backed Securitisation Bond” was to start on 31 March 2005 and end on 31 March 2010. It promised 10% pa income in quarterly instalments and, the Soods believe, but are not totally sure, return of capital at the end of the period.
As novice investors, they did not question the eye-popping interest rate and did not understand the underlying asset-backing. They placed absolute faith in their advisers. Ultimately these bonds were invested in Life Settlements, ergo second-hand US life insurance policies. Unhappily, the issuer was the Luxembourg-based and now notorious (post-Keydata) SLS Capital SA.
It was marketed, say the Soods, by Global Holdings International Ltd, a Gibraltar-based “fund and service provider to financial advisers and wealth creation specialists around the world” announces their website. Their representatives appeared with Mr Virdee at the Soods’ home to help secure the deal.
The Soods account of Mr Virdee’s conduct implies scant regard for the regulatory process required of IFAs for such transactions. A full picture of their circumstances was allegedly not obtained, neither was a risk profile and so on. The only letter they have in their possession from Mr Virdee is the briefest of notes to tell them where in Luxembourg to transfer their money.
They were only ever offered this single investment product, they say, and don’t remember ever seeing a brochure - just “paper photocopies”. Being an offshore investment, commission was not disclosed.
Still the bond worked for a while, so everyone was happy. But then when the balloon went down on SLS Capital SA, the Soods income payments stopped. The net payments amounted to more than £8,000 pa, more than a third of their joint retirement income. They now cover this hole by dipping into their remaining capital.
After the last payment in December 2008, their wild goose chase started. What happened they wanted to know and what can we do about it?
The Soods have been tenacious in their enquiries. They contacted their accountant. They were no longer clients and he didn’t want to know. They spoke to their IFA, Mr Virdee. He was sympathetic but hasn’t been much practical help. He’s also now set up a new business after Doshi Financial Services was wound up in 2006 “upon the petition of” Legal & General.
His new practice G11 Financial Management Ltd includes on its Home Page a tab entitled “Favourite Stocks”. The contents to be found there at time of writing include:
“Everybody has been worried about the financial markets with the news that Northern Rock are in trouble. To be truthful Northern Rock are only in trouble if we think so, and start to withdraw, sell shares. NR is one of the strongest companies in the world. Click on the links below (not included) to get some more information on the way the company is shaped up to face the future. We know some people will be busy buying the NRK shares to capitalise on the down turn in the company.”
And on…they spoke to their contacts at Global Holdings International Ltd. They were initially sympathetic but now no longer take their calls. The Soods spoke to the FSA about a claim against their IFA. They were advised that because his former business had now ceased and he had started a new one, there was no claim against the individual concerned.
The FSA put them on to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme to explore a compensation claim. They understood it as a complaint against the bond itself and informed the Soods it was an offshore investment and so not their problem. They passed on contact details to the Luxembourg regulator.
So they contacted the Luxembourg regulator – the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. There they discovered SLS was not a regulated entity, so investors are not eligible for compensation anyway – a key point causing the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme to dwell on its decision as to whether to compensate Keydata investors.
They contacted Luxembourg replacement Custodians, Equity Trust. Nothing. They contacted the original Custodians too, MeesPierson Intertrust via their parent, Fortis bank. They even got in contact with the judicial authorities in Luxembourg, “all in vain”.
They contacted PwC’s Luxembourg office, ex-auditors of the now defunct SLS Capital, and coincidentally, appointed administrators in the UK clear up job of the Keydata mess. It’s out of hands now PwC Luxembourg told them.
They emailed BWT Holdings, the Labuan-based holding company of SLS Capital. An operations manager promised to get back to them but hasn’t. They called BWT Holdings Chairman David Elias at their Malaysian tax haven lair of Labuan, to find the line, like the Chairman, was dead. BWT’s London legal representative told them it’s with the judicial authorities in Luxembourg and he can’t discuss it.
Experienced investors will have tut-tutted at the warning signals screaming from the get go and ponder the old cliché that a fool and his money are soon parted. The morality tale may be as old as the hills but the regulator is not there to pass judgment but to provide the greatest protection to those most in need of it. Yet here we find a situation where the Soods appear to have fallen between the cracks in between, in spite of what appear more than reasonable grounds for some form of compensation claim. They have been left alone floundering in a bewildering world of international trustees, agents, custodians and regulators…with little help yet from anyone.
Treating customers fairly? The Soods are left to wonder.
Where’s the Key Data?
Posted by robin in Financial Articles Thursday July 9, 2009 5:33 pm
There appears something of an ironic ring to the name Keydata these days…
The investment administrator was brought down by the FSA on June 8 and deemed insolvent. Some sloppy listing work meant some of its bonds were rendered non-compliant for the promised tax-exempt ISA status. The exceptional tax charge it triggered landed on the company’s plate.
Three weeks later in its update of 30 June PwC, the appointed administrator, revealed it was much worse than that. £103m in assets entrusted to Luxembourg-based SLS Capital SA had “been liquidated and may have been misappropriated”.
The case is now a fraud inquiry. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has been called in to what is shaping up be the largest UK investment fraud in 20 years.
PwC also revealed income payments due from SLS had dried up back in October 2008. KIS papered over this considerable crack by maintaining payments itself. Now we know what PwC meant when it spoke of ‘irregular’ payments.
Director’s innocent?
In a joint statement the three now ex-directors defended their integrity. Citywire reported on July 1:
‘The directors only became aware this week-end that the underlying assets of SLS appear to have been liquidated. As such it would now appear that, along with other distributors, Keydata has been the innocent victim of a fraud perpetrated by SLS and those connected with it.’
The fact that KIS sanctioned the afore-mentioned ‘irregular’ income payments in lieu of SLS for eight months prior, prompts some Roger Moore-style eyebrow-raising as to their plea of ‘innocence’. The FT reported on July 3 that “people close to the investigation” maintain the fund’s assets had been “missing for at least six months”.
And it turns out the SIB bonds were not the first ‘irregular’ income payment sanctioned by KIS. They had been stumping up on series of property-linked bonds when their partner in this venture, Hometrak SA, let them down. This dates back more than 16 months to February 2008 and a question mark hangs over the fund assets. PwC is seeking “confirmation as regards the status of the underlying assets” totalling some £2m.
Taken together it would appear KIS’s directors had been frantically fire fighting for some time and the tangle with HMRC finally burned the house down.
The combined drain of income payments from KIS may help explain why an ostensibly successful and growing business reported a profits slump from almost £1m in 2007 to £1,400 in 2008. KIS’s auditors, BDO Stoy Hayward presumably are fielding questions on that one.
The directors also added in their defence that they did not have any connection with the late-David Elias, a controversial businessman and “recently deceased fugitive from UK justice” in the words of the FT. He had been holed up in Singapore, controlled operations through Malaysian-based BWT Holdings from the offshore tax haven of Labuan and is reported to have controlled SLS Capital.
High income promise lures the punters…
KIS launched its first venture into structured bonds backed by US traded life insurance policies with a series of four bonds called, again now with no small tinge of irony: Secure Income Bonds.
Here, the basics of the Secure Income Bond (SIB) series:
Name Offer Closed Maturity
Secure Income Bond issue 1 Closed 16 Sept 2005 7 Oct 2010
Secure Income Bond issue 2 Closed 4 November 2005 25 Nov 2010
Secure Income Bond issue 3 Closed 23 Dec 2005 20 Jan 2011
Secure Income Bond issue 4 Closed 24 Feb 2006 17 Mar 2011
The SIB 1-4 series offered an identical deal. In a nutshell:
· A 5-year fixed term
· Income or growth options:
Income: 7.5% pa or 1.875% pq
Growth: 43.5% as bullet payment at the end of the term
· Funds invested in a mix of traded life policies (life settlements) and cash
· ISA/SIPP investment options
In an age of low interest rates, the high income was/is attractive. But despite its reassuring product name, neither capital nor income was ‘secure’.
SIB 4 was different
At this point it appears the 5,500-odd investors in SIB 1-3 may have lost their money. Those in SIB 4 have not.
How so?
This is where a trawl through the sales brochures makes for informative reading. By the time SIB 4 there were a number of subtle but distinct changes.
Crucially, in the light of subsequent events, SIB 4 switched from SLS to Lifemark SA as its Luxembourg bond securitisation agents. This may have been purely a commercial decision but may also suggest that as far back as the start of 2006, KIS and/or its Luxembourg Custodians, MeesPierson Intertrust had had their fill of SLS. According to the FT, MeesPierson appointed directors on SLS resigned the following year.
All SLS assets from Keydata together with assorted others such as Brunei -based Orion Life, Isle of Man fund Interalia Optimised Returns Fund plc and clients of UK-based IFA Marks Jacobson, are feared missing.
In contrast, Lifemark SA assets are reported safe. Of the £349m KIS invested via Lifemark SA, PwC report they have “received confirmation of the existence of the underlying assets supporting these products”. SIB 4 investors, it seems, can breathe easy.
Economical with the actualité
The unlucky SIB 1-3 investors with the presence of mind to have retained their sales brochures might be scratching their heads in wonderment, not to mention anger.
1. Who is SLS Capital SA?
In brochures 1-3 HSBC, KPMG and MeesPierson are trumpeted under a section titled “Strong Management” (the title was amended to “Parties Involved” in the SIB 4 brochure) along with their credit ratings. For most readers the names will be the most readily digestible as we enter into this complicated world of trustees, custodians, advisers, traded life policies and financial models.
In SIB 1-3 their functions are explained as:
KIS – promoter/administrator/ISA manager
MeesPierson – custodian/registrar and payment administrator
HSBC – trades and holds the life assurance contracts for the custodian
KPMG – provided the actuarial model, manage portfolio cash flow, monitor credit ratings of the life assurance companies issuing the contracts.
SLS Capital SA does not feature. Not to mention other bit part players who have since come to light such as US firm CRT Capital Investment Banking Group, which we learn advised SLS Capital.
And yet SLS apparently had the critical responsibility of making “bonds-based securitised life assurance payments”. Somehow too it may have been in a position to unlock fund assets and “misappropriate” more than £103m from KIS clients alone.
The finger of blame now points at MeesPierson Intertrust, a major provider of corporate and trust services and part of Belgian-based bank and credit crunch casualty, Fortis. As Custodians they had responsibility for holding SIB fund assets – life policies and cash.
The FT reported on 4 July staff had moved on and directors of SLS, supplied by MeesPierson, “resigned in April 2007”. And PwC’s own Luxembourg arm which had been auditing the SLS books says it quit in 2006. BDO quit in May 2009.
Did this staff turnover make it possible for to liquidate 200-odd supposedly illiquid assets (ie US life assurance policies) into a relatively niche market and abscond with the proceeds?
And what of the role of HSBC? As trustees, they were responsible for the ownership and trading of the life policies. Were these life assurance policies sold behind their backs?
The SIB 3 brochure states: “Once bought, HSBC own the contracts as Trustees for the Bond”.
So if they owned and traded these bonds, and if the portfolio was liquidated, how did they let it happen? Where does their responsibility begin and end?
KPMG’s name is used liberally in brochures SIB 1-3. They are the financial alchemists who put together the actuarial model that made the whole fund work. They also have a role in keeping an eye on credit ratings of the companies issuing the life assurance policies in the fund.
By the time the SIB 4 brochure comes out in January 2006, KPMG’s name has disappeared entirely and we read only of an “actuarial model”. HSBC’s name has gone too and becomes an anonymous “leading Investment Bank” only MeesPierson remains a named party.
2. Er, actually it’s an offshore investment…
It takes a very careful read of the entire brochure for clues that this is an offshore investment.
More than that it’s offshore on two levels as the fund assets are:
(i) Predominantly US life assurance policies
(ii) Held in Luxembourg
KIS itself was a licensed UK entity regulated by the FSA but was it made crystal clear to the average investor this was an offshore investment from the information given? Not to this writer.
The traded life policy business is an exclusively US-centric on account of the unique characteristics applying in that market. In SIB 1-3 there appears no explicit statement as to the origin of the life assurance policies.
SIB 1 makes oblique mention in the small print Foreign Exchange Risk section: “Insurance contracts in the portfolio are purchased in US $ and the ongoing premiums are paid in US $ until maturity”.
SIB 2 and 3 exclude that statement but advise under their Issuing Company Risk section: “There are 3,500 contract issuers in the US and Canada that can be included in the portfolio.”
In SIB 4 this changes. An explicit admission finally emerges and a “portfolio of insurance contracts” becomes a “portfolio of US and Canadian insurance contracts”. In addition, the line that life assurance contracts would be bought from the likes of “AIG, GE Life and Prudential” has been removed too.
The names of US life assurance companies instantly recognisable by UK investors is likely a short one and the reference of Prudential a tad disingenuous. They may be in the same line of business but the reference presumably applies to the US Prudential Financial Inc., an entirely separate organisation from the UK’s Prudential plc.
As mentioned earlier brochures refer to corporate protection policies known as “Key Man” insurance as being the kind of policies this fund will specialise in. This information seems to do little more than add further unsubstantiated jargon more likely to confuse than enlighten lay investors.
Does the brochure tell you your money will be housed in Luxembourg?
Not for me it doesn’t. Instead, the overall impression is one where, in print at least, the offshore – indeed global – nature of this investment has been systematically suppressed. If so, this is at least understandable from a commercial, if not ethical, perspective. A fair swathe of cautious investors is wary of investing offshore. Such fears, where held, look well founded in this case.
All told the impression given, at best, is one of being “economical with the actualité”. At worst, though I’m no legal mind, the word misrepresentation comes to mind.
New “asset class” not at fault
This suspected fraud exposes the twisted entrails of such complicated investments and bring into sharper focus the FSA’s initial concerns.
It launched its inquiry into KIS on fears of the “aggressive marketing” of these bonds to frequently unsophisticated investors. A fair few of whom, bought these bonds directly and without advice. As such, they likely acted on the strengths of the promotional literature alone.
It also brings the old Buffett aphorism to mind: Don’t invest in what you don’t understand…and we could add, even if you are desperate for more income than measly 300-year low interest rates will pay.
As to the promoters of traded life policies as an investment and new “asset class”, it is another unwelcome blot in their copy book. In their defence, it’s worth remembering this is “suspected” fraud and not an indictment that traded life policies don’t work as an investment. To date there is ample to suggest they can and do.
And as to the abused investors in SIB 1-3, they may have to seek redress from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Even this safety net may prove inadequate for larger investors as it is capped at £48,000 – 100% on the first £30,000 and 90% on the next £20,000.
If any unfortunate SIB investors who chances on reading this, I would make one suggestion. If you haven’t already, dig out all your information on this and ask yourself: were you really given the key data needed to understand what you were buying?
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