Financial Conduct
Beaufort Securities and Beaufort Asset Clearing
RNS Number : 4726G
Financial Conduct Authority
02 March 2018

Beaufort Securities Limited (BSL) and Beaufort Asset Clearing Services Limited (BACSL) are placed into insolvency

Following an urgent application by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the High Court has appointed Messrs Russell Downs, Douglas Nigel Rackham and Dan Yoram Schwarzmann of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as joint administrators of BSL and joint special administrators of BACSL.

The FCA took this action following an assessment of the financial positions of BSL and BACSL (the Firms) which led the FCA to believe that both Firms are insolvent. The FCA also considers it necessary for insolvency practitioners to take over the running of the Firms in order to protect assets from dissipation and protect the customers of both Firms.

The FCA has also imposed requirements on the Firms, with immediate effect, using its own-initiative powers under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (the Act), requiring the Firms to cease all regulatory activity and not to dispose of any firm or client assets without the FCA's consent.

The joint administrators / joint special administrators will contact all affected customers of the firms in due course. If customers of the Firms require more information about how they will be affected, they should contact PwC (contact details will be made available by PwC through the day).

Not filled out form yet.

Will send it off once back in the UK this weekend.

Thanks

Clocktower.

Clock, have you received a communication from pwc inviting you to complete this form? I ask because to me it looks more like a claim form to be completed by suppliers to beaufort who have not been paid for their services.

There is a note on the PWC statement to the effect that Beaufort clients should wait to be contacted.

Beaufort had a dealer in charge called Scott who often refused to buy or sell for clients
because no security was done. But there was never any answer on the phone lines for those who did the security so if you cannot sell online and nobody is answering the phones to do security and the dealers refused to do the security then you were basically fecked. The FCA should have shut this outfit down a long time ago. The simply stockbroking side of the business was fine until they merged with crooks Hoodless Brennan.

We have safeguarded the Firms’ IT and data systems as well as securing approximately £50million in segregated client money accounts and approximately £850million in client securities. We are pleased to be able to confirm that the monies and securities that we have secured are held appropriately in accordance with FCA requirements.

We are mindful that a continuing inability to access your portfolios will be a source of uncertainty and concern. We are doing everything we can to minimise the disruption that this process will cause. We do not anticipate any returns before mid-April at the earliest and many returns will likely take longer. We have had a number of meetings with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme ("FSCS"). The FSCS has declared the Firms to be in default under its rules and as a consequence compensation of up to £50,000 may be available to clients who are eligible under FSCS’s rules. We will provide further guidance in that regard when we are able. General guidance may be found on the FSCS website www.fscs.org.uk.

PcW have posted a updated info page:
https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/business-recovery/administrations/beaufort/beaufort-faqs.html

OK, this could be fun. Potential takeover at HMSO. Guess where my HMSO shares are.

Received update from this carve up.

More complicated than first thought.



Stratton Oakmont comes to mind.

Claret; I hope those who had cash or shares lodged with them get everything or close to everything back.

•we do, however, estimate around 700 clients with client money and client assets together valued in excess of approximately £150,000 may experience a loss on their entitlements in excess of the FSCS’s £50,000 compensation limit.

•clients who do not fulfil the FSCS eligibility criteria will not be entitled to receive FSCS compensation and will, regrettably, face a loss on their client money and assets.

And nobody's getting anything until September (except for the few who have under £2000 in cash only).

The other problem is at what value and date are the securities being valued at, if they are not all being returned to the holders, which they first advised would be, on their question page. How do they deal with price movements?

I guess the liquidators are just milking it as usual.

commervan, I think they are still acting on any corporate action on stocks they hold by what I read but how they handle any cash bid situation is another matter, and where the greater problem mat arise, is if they accept the cash in a bid situation and it leaves you witha portfolio over the £50k you will see b all of the excess from what I understand.

Not happy

I am wondering if this is just the first of many brokerages.

Is there anywhere safe to put your money these days?

Under the bed

Down the allotment.

No wonder many don't trust the financial sector and prefer to own Property.

Gold Bars are less trouble CD.

I guess we need to spread our portfolios across several brokerages.

The takeover of HMSO by a French outfit was called off yesterday, so no risk of my suddenly acquiring a load of cash which PWC could raid. On the minus side, the shares plummeted almost back to where they were, without my having the opportunity to sell.

There are a couple of other shares I would like to have banked some profits on too. Actually, being forced to leave them alone has probably worked out in my favour (as long as i do eventually get the shares back, obviously).

My thought too. Got open another couple of accounts at least. The time line before we get access to our stock is a worry.

The lack of trading opportunity is one of the major problems plus as PwC are raiding the stocks as well, the problem also arises on the day they set the bar!

So, how much they will take by payment by selling stocks that may have plunged but could rapidly rise in between is another matter. In addition it seems they have a lot that are next to worthless to trade at the time the bar maybe set, and how they deal with these that even a week later could be well worth a reasonable amount is questionable.

At first they said all securities would be returned around mid April/May, now we have the situation where they will feed on them until they have nothing worthwhile left, so leaving claims to the FSCS. Would the FSCS not be better just picking up the bill up to £50k and getting them to return stocks to designated brokers, in the same manner as they are returning up to £2k in cash.

How does the system ensure that the administration is expedited?