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).

The last date was 10 september now its the end of September - what a joke after all this time

I note on the share.com website questions answered there is a note about not joining them: If you join them you are stuck with their charges

https://www.share.com/help-support/beaufort-securities
"
Don't want to join us?

If you wish to transfer to a broker of your choice or liquidate your client assets, please contact the client service desk at Beaufort who will be able to discuss the options with you."

If you choose not to transfer to the sharecentre - there is no date available, it could be three months or even six months that your in limbo BUT the good news is that if you allow your stocks/cash to be transfered to them, there is a period of three months that you can transfer out from them to your broker of choice without being charged.

Clocktower,

Where did you see that, please?

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55011 - If you contact the Client Services Team on 0800 063 9283 they will confirm it I believe, and if so, please post confirmation on this page.

"
.... BUT the good news is that if you allow your stocks/cash to be transfered to them, there is a period of three months that you can transfer out from them to your broker of choice without being charged. ......"

I have seen no mention of this in the PWC documentation, or on the Share Centre pages, or in the Share Centre "ex Beaufort welcome " letter.

55011 - I did not either but having contacted the Team, and discussed the options etc. as I had read on the sharecentre website seeing that you could contact the Team and opt out, so having been informed that one would be disavantage further, I expressed there was little choice but to accept the Sharecentre charges to transfer out of them to by broker of choice, I was advised that I would have the option of doing this for FREE for the first three months, once the shres were with Sharecentre.

Please contact them, and get this confirmed, and post the response please, so as to confirm this to others.

I am not surprised sharecentre have not put this up on their website, as they will not want new clients doing a runner, and missing the chance of extra fees.

Clocktower,

Fair enough. Thanks for the enlightenment.

It was in fact posted by PWC, back in the very early days of this whole sorry affair, that Beaufort clients could opt for their own choice of broker, but that there would likely be a greater delay in the transfer compared with taking the PWC preferred option. I note that they haven't referred to that since.

I did see the para you mention on the Share Centre "welcome" page, but did wonder if it had been put there with PWC's knowledge and approval, since today's PWC notifications made no such mention.

Hopefully they will clarify in the next few days. It will be a busy time for all concerned whichever way it goes, and I fear that will lead to further delay and dissatisfaction.

On balance I would rather go direct to one of my existing brokers in one step - much simpler, I would have thought, and surely less scope for errors to creep in.

My missus is with The Share Centre, and they seem competent, and I like the look and feel of the app and website. I will need to look at their charges though. In addition to the £1.80/month, she also pays a £24/quarter for a frequent dealing package with lower prices/deal (£7.50 instead of 1%). This strikes me as expensive.

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OK, I've just done some sums, and for MY volume of trading, I get the following annual costs. This is based on monthly fees, 25x £3000 deals/year, 24 dividends per year.

Beaufort (for comparison only) £224
Hargreaves Lansdown £343.75
Halifax £312.50
Share.com £ 771.60
Share.com hi volume option £305.10

It is just a shame the company was destroyed because of less than £400k - and look at the cost to most stakeholders, throughlack of access - My reckoning it has to date cost me around £25k in losses due to share spikes alone.

Up until they put their new website on-line, offer a great self service for £8 a shot be it on-line or telephone, and up until late 2017 I found the service very good indeed.

As soon as my stocks are with them, and they confirm I am able to trade, I will move the account but it is good to know some are very satisfied with them.

I contacted share.com today, as they offer free trial accounts - if you fancy giving them a go when your stocks have been transfered from PwC`s control. However, they cannot open this if you are not a resident on UK Mainland, why beats me, as it is only a trial account, hence the need to phone them.

First, the time they took to answer the phone and this does not inspire one.

Secondly, I was advised that when they get handed your accounts, they will post a temporary password to you, and they do not know how long this will take them to send it to you from the time they receive your stocks. Once you have it though you will hopefully be able to set up your own and trade without to much delay - We shall see if that is true.

God information. Thanks Clocktower

New e-mail from PwC today about the transfer - and letter from The Share Centre.

Transfers to start end Sept but there will then be a verification process - so heaven knows how slow that will be.

To date I estimate the lack of access to my assets in Beaufort have already cost me a least £30k from loss of oppotuinty to take profits and losses.

If this debacle had been handled efficently and expeditiously, there would I expect be fewrer that have suffered what to some might be serious losses.

Any others like to disclose if they would have been better or worse off had this not occured?

Worse off for the same reason. Stuck in stocks you cant move in and out of.

No contact made yet. :(

Until a month ago i would have said I have been better off without access to my shares. Being forced to leave them alone has meant I have been forced 'run my winners'. SBRY in particular has outperformed and my ETFs have done well. This month though, these have plateaud(sp??), while SSE have plummeted, dragging NG with them. My BS portfolio is now 4.7% better than in March, largely thanks to the dividends I just found out about, which is probably where I would've been anyway.

This has dragged on too long.

I was contacted by one of the scamming firms last week, saying they were the share centre, and then introducing another company name. I was aware they were scammers, and suggested they put everything down in an email, as if they were whom they tried to suggest they were, they would have my e-mail asddress. Guess what NO Email as expected.

Beware of the scams!!

They are breaking the law making cold calls also.

Now, I reckon it has cost me in excess of £30k