Leeds court hears statement relating to wind-up of Hartley Pensions' parent firm

The hearing has been adjourned until 10am this morning.

According to Hartley Pension’s due diligence pack (2017), Wilton UK (Group) Ltd bought Hartley Pensions in 2016 and is wholly owned by Wilton Group Ltd .

On July 11 last year, Colm John O'Sullivan and Most Consulting Ltd, filed a petition to wind up the Wilton UK (Group) in the Business and Property Courts in Leeds, as creditors of Wilton UK (Group), according to the Gazette.

In April this year, Andrew Andronikou, a restructuring specialist at Quantuma Advisory Ltd, was appointed by Wilton UK (Group) Ltd, to wind it up.

It is understood witness statements from pensioners with money in Hartley Sipps are to be read out in the Leeds Circuit Commercial Court as part of the hearing.

As reported extensively by FTAdviser, Hartley Pensions itself went into administration in July 2022, and since then, clients have been facing long delays in getting their money out. 

Earlier this year, a joint administrator's report from UHY Hacker Young said it was trying to assess the intercompany financial position and whether debts are owed between the company (Hartley Pensions Limited) and Wilton UK (Group). 

Its report stated: "Again, we have sought to understand the movement between the audited accounts from 2021, the letter dated January 25, 2022, WUK’s position in July 2022 prior to the administration and the revised position following the administration, however no meaningful information has been forthcoming.

"Our investigations into the intercompany position are ongoing, albeit we have been notified of a winding up petition against WUK and therefore the estimated to realis[able] value remains uncertain."

Witness statements related to the petition were presented to the Leeds court in a hearing yesterday, FTAdviser understands.

Comments have been sought from Wilton UK, UHY Hacker Young and clients who supplied witness statements in the court. 

FTAdviser will provide an update on the hearing when the court session finishes.

Wilton UK entered administration on April 3 of this year, with Quantuma Advisory Limited's Michael Kiely, Andrew Andronikou and Christopher Newell appointed as the administrators on April 17, 2023.

In the same month, FTAdviser reported that Hartley Pensions’ clients may have to wait up to a year to get their Sipp assets after some clients struggled to draw down their funds.

Earlier this month, a group of pensioners who are battling to get their money from Hartley Pensions' administrators invited advisers and clients to contact FTAdviser to help create an action group.

What happened with Hartley?

Hartley Pensions was established and approved as a pensions operator under the Wilton UK in late 2016.

Hartley took on the books of a number of collapsed Sipp providers. For example, administrators sold the Sipp business and certain assets of Guinness Mahon to Hartley Pensions in February 2020.

The sale of Guinness Mahon included around 4,000 Sipps and certain other assets but did not include the legal entity Guinness Mahon Trust Corporation.

Guinness Mahon entered administration following a raft of complaints about historic high-risk non-standard investments.

In 2018, Hartley Pensions said it would administer the good and bad assets of collapsed Sipp provider Lifetime Sipp, which went into administration in March 2018.

Then later in August 2019, Hartley bought defunct provider GPC Sipp's healthy Sipp and Ssas books for £482,000.

Just last week, UHY Hacker Young, the administrators of Hartley Pensions set out four cost models to calculate exit and administration charges for Sipp clients.

This will replace the current annual management fees that Sipp clients are being charged and will enable them to eventually transfer out.

simoney.kyriakou@ft.com jane.matthews@ft.com