FSCS pays out £4.8m on Beaufort Securities

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FSCS pays out £4.8m on Beaufort Securities

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has paid out a total of £4.75m on 318 claims made against stockbroker Beaufort Securities Limited.

The lifeboat fund told FTAdviser that to date it has received 1,525 claims against Beaufort Securities relating to the firm’s discretionary fund management and advisory stockbroking activities as well as investments.

Of these claims, 318 have been paid and 911 are still in progress, while 296 have been rejected.

Today (July 31), the FSCS announced that claims made against the firm, relating to investments in Aegis Power Bonds have now been moved to its claims processing teams for assessment. 

This means all claims against Beaufort Securities are now ready for assessment, the FSCS stated.

Of the claims paid out thus far some will be levied against the investment provision funding class and others against the life distribution, pensions and investment intermediaries funding classes.  

The claims were mainly related to Sipps, shares, other types of investments, and other pension advice, the FSCS stated.

Russell Downs, Dan Schwarzmann and Nigel Rackham of accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers were appointed as joint administrators of Beaufort Securities and joint special administrators of Beaufort Asset Clearing Services on March 2, 2018. 

This was shortly after the US Department of Justice brought criminal charges against Beaufort Asset Clearing Services for its alleged involvement in securities fraud and money laundering.

In April, the FSCS reported that it had returned assets and cash to more than 16,000 former clients of Beaufort Asset Clearing Services.

The FSCS explained that as a customer making investments with Beaufort, all correspondence will have been branded as Beaufort Securities Ltd.

Beaufort Asset Clearing Services provided the clearing and custody services to Beaufort Securities. So all client money and assets were held with Beaufort Asset Clearing Services.

National advice firm AFH bought the client book of the Colwyn Bay office of Beaufort Securities from PwC in September 2018.

The consolidator agreed to pay £250,000 for the client portfolios, which at the time added £130m to AFH's funds under management.

amy.austin@ft.com

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