The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has paid out almost £400,000 on claims against an adviser that merged with another business once previous compensation issues emerged last year.
Advice firm Facts & Figures Financial Planners Limited fell into liquidation in July last year, with the FSCS confirming to FTAdviser it has now paid £381,000 in claims against the Kent-based firm.
The compensation was paid to six clients in relation to pension transfers and self-invested personal pensions, with the industry-funded lifeboat scheme currently processing four further claims.
Facts & Figures is no longer authorised on the FCA register but its former director, Simon Webster, who held the position from January 2005 to August 2019, is now a senior independent financial adviser and business development consultant at Talis Independent Financial Advisers, according to its website.
According to the Talis website the company is the result of a merger between Facts & Figures and another firm named Stennings IFA.
Last year the Financial Ombudsman Service ordered Facts & Figures Financial Planners to compensate a client after his £35,000 Sipp was invested in an overseas property development run by Harlequin.
The advice firm had classed the client as insistent, requiring him to sign a form which set out the risks of the investment, but the ombudsman still found Facts & Figures should not have arranged the transfer.
Facts & Figures was one of thirty firms, including at least seven other advisers, that was declared in default by the FSCS between November last year and January.
Mr Webster had previously said he was increasingly concerned about high regulatory fees and the FSCS levy at the time and suggested replacing the latter with a "product levy".
In 2017 Mr Webster told FTAdviser the FCA should have made pension mis-selling a regulatory focus, flagging it as an area where "clients can lose a lot of money".
Mr Webster and Talis Independent Financial Advisers have been approached for comment.
rachel.mortimer@ft.com
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