The director of Newcastle upon Tyne-based Lowes Financial Management was responding to comments by Adrian Barnwell, Reyker’s head of strategy and risk, who said last month that thousands of pensioners would have lost everything had the firm not stepped in.
Mr Lowes said: “In the unlikely worst-case scenario, no one would have lost their original investment, let alone everything.”
Earlier this year he described the hike in charges imposed by Reyker on the plan holders as “profiteering”.
Mr Lowes claimed Reyker’s charges for Merchant investors were still unclear, and some investors had more than one-tenth of their original investment swallowed up by Reyker’s imposed charges at maturity.
The firm imposed charges starting at £75 for each plan when it took over the management of the funds in January, which Mr Barnwell said was needed for the amount of administration.
Responding to claims by Mr Barnwell that the whole process had been “profit dilutive” for Reyker, he claimed correspondence from the firm “lacked clarity”, leading to more than 12,300 IFA queries and more than 12,500 client queries between January and September.
He also accused Reyker of marketing directly to IFA clients without the adviser’s knowledge.
A spokesman for Reyker was unable to respond Mr Lowes’ comments by the time Financial Adviser went to press.
To read the letter in full visit www.ftadviser.com/fa
