Tag: Bob Parker

Holborn Assets’ Kensington Fund – Another Trap to Ruin Victims
Holborn Assets’ Kensington Fund – Another trap to ruin victims. Why do I say that? There are many reasons:
1. Firstly, Holborn Assets should compensate the existing victims of past scams before contemplating moving on to new ones. There are plenty of Holborn Assets clients facing disastrous losses because of being invested in toxic UCIS funds such as Premier New Earth Recycling and high-risk, professional-investor-only structured notes. Surely, a firm which is as hopeless as that with investments shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near an investment fund? Holborn Assets has already proved it doesn’t understand investments and only has the mentality to flog whatever high-risk crap earns the most commission.
2. Secondly, Holborn Assets’ previous in-house fund, LF Partners, was a dismal performer. It flat-lined at best, and the high charges ate into what little was left of the investments. Holborn Assets have demonstrated they have zero expertise in choosing or managing funds. But what do you expect – they are a shower of ice cream salesmen with few qualifications in financial services, and hardly likely to have any training in investment fund management
3. The way Holborn Assets encourages their troupe of snake-oil salesmen to recruit as many victims as possible is to encentivise them with “privileges” based on their sales volume. This includes invitations to the booze and drug-fuelled orgies – such as earlier this year in Tanzania (with an even more depraved version planned for 2019 in Cambodia).
4. Holborn Assets employs the dregs of the financial services World – mostly unqualified, unprincipled and unscrupulous. Including Paul Reynolds – banned and fined by the FCA – and Darrin Brownlee-Jones – jailed for killing a motorcyclist – the Holborn Assets staff are a motley crew at best. A den of thieves at worst. Even worse, everyone in the firm seems to be happy to stand by and see innocent people’s lives destroyed by Holborn Assets‘ hard-sell tactics, and greedy investment arrangements which disadvantage the investors but pay handsome commissions to the Holborn Assets salesmen.
Back to the Kensington fund. I posted an invitation to comment on the fund yesterday on Linkedin – Monday 18th June 2018. My post has got over 2,300 views in less than 24 hours – and the industry experts are clearly outraged. The views range from Cape Town to Edinburgh; from Aviva and Brooks Macdonald to Globaleye and Standard Bank Group.

Some of the comments include:

“With so many multi-manager, multi-asset funds with demonstrable track records, why would a company chose to recommend a fund that is only weeks old and potentially risk clients money?”

“High commissions, zero repercussions”

“Kensington – is being promoted as Holborn Assets’ “flagship” fund whilst sharing the same Director”

“If you read the instrument of incorporation on the above link and look at “Fees” it suggests the fund can pay 7% up front on a share trade to a range of bodies….”

“No sign of a prospectus or Kiid document either …. about as transparent as a brick…. avoid”

The Kensington Fund website doesn’t tell us much about the fund. It claims to “partner” with Schroders, Rathbones and Marlborough (I wonder if these funds even know!). It doesn’t tell us who is running the fund or responsible for investment decisions.

The Kensington Fund was listed on 12.4.2018 – so it is a brand new fund with no information, no history and no performance. It quotes “virtual” performance by quoting a backtest to try to create the illusion that it can, in the future, perform well.

There are no details of costs, no fact sheets, no details of who is making the investment decisions. The directors are Scott Balsdon, Director of Holborn Assets, Globaleye and Adamou Riyad, CCO of Holborn Assets (and Noel Ford). So the fund is run by the same cowboys who run Holborn Assets – yeehaa!

So, apart from all the above reasons why Holborn Assets’ Kensington fund should be drowned at birth, is the fact that nobody will just pick up the phone and sort out the mess of the past. Instead, they just want to go ahead and cause more messes.

And, finally, Holborn Assets forge five-star Trustpilot reviews. How sad is that?

My advice to any potential victims of Holborn Assets’ Kensington fund: remember that by the time you have paid for the ten-year insurance bond and then have 100% of your life savings invested in this dreadful fund, you will have lost 15% of your money. Avoid Holborn Assets’ Kensington Fund – or, better still, avoid Holborn Assets.
June 19, 2018
Qualified or not qualified? That is the question.
I have been working for Pension Life for five months. I help Angie Brooks with blogging, images and social media networking. When editing a blog the other day, a question struck me: how do we know if anyone who offers a service is qualified to do so? For example, be it the dentist, doctor or financial adviser. When we go to the doctor at, say, an NHS-registered surgery, we don´t ask for the doctor’s certificate, qualifications or credentials. We assume that the NHS has done all the checking and that the doctor we see is qualified.

Pension Life blogs often talk about regulated and unregulated firms and qualified financial adviser and unqualified financial adviser. The world of finance, unfortunately, harbours some downright greedy wrong’uns with pound signs in their eyes. These wrong’uns are happy to swan about giving unqualified and regulated advice and hopefully stay under the radar.

I thought that a blog explaining the qualifications needed to advise someone on their pension and investments would be an invaluable blog to have in the Pension Life blog archives.

I work in pensions and finance, but I am not a qualified financial adviser. I have studied Multimedia and Cultural Studies – I have a bachelor of Arts degree – and here is where I apply my skills to – specifically – the pension side of finance. This does not, however, mean I am in any way qualified to give pensions and investment advice – as I am not qualified to do so.

However, here in the Pension Life office we are well aware that there are many unqualified and unregulated people offering financial advice to pension holders. The tragic result is that many people are falling victim to pension and investment scams as they are not aware of the qualifications which must be held in order to offer this kind of financial advice.

Pension vampires are hidden around every bend. With cold calling, charming manners and compelling sales techniques, offering high returns with low risks, it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security and trust these fraudsters with your money.

Lucky for readers, I am here to offer you knowledge and information to help you avoid falling victim to bad financial advice from an unqualified financial adviser.

Using advice from Chartered Global about financial qualifications, you can discover that:
Level 3 Financial Adviser Qualifications

The most basic or entrance tier is the certificate level which is classed as a level 3 qualification within the UK framework, equivalent to A levels. Level 3 qualifications include:

CertCII: Certificate in Financial Planning issued by the Chartered Insurance Institute

CertPFS: Certificate in Financial Planning issued by the Personal Finance Society

CeFA: Certificate in Financial Advice issued by the Institute of Financial Services

Cert IM: Certificate in Investment Management issued by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment

Level 3 qualifications are sometimes held by adviser office staff and certain mortgage or protection advisers in a bank for example. These certificates require passing a selection of exams over 1-2 years and holders will have a general grounding in financial planning and financial services.
Level 4 Financial Adviser Qualifications

However, since 2012 financial advisers in the UK have been required to hold a minimum of a level 4 qualification to be able to continue to provide independent financial planning advice.The minimum required qualification to provide independent financial planning advice in the UK is now the diploma level, a level 4 professional qualification.

Look for the following letters or designations to identify a level 4 adviser:

DipCII: Diploma in Financial Planning issued by the CII

DipPFS: Diploma in Financial Planning issued by the PFS

DipFA: Diploma in Financial Advice issued by the IFS

IAD: Investment Advice Diploma issued by the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment

Building on the certificate knowledge, level 4 advisers will offer a well rounded understanding of financial planning and products, from general investments, structured products, to basic pension, protection, tax and savings advice.
Level 6 Financial Adviser Qualifications

A full two levels higher are the profession’s top tier of financial advisers; holders of level 6 qualifications equivalent to a bachelor honours degree. Completing a comprehensive suite of professional exams over many years, these top-flight advisers will be designated through one of the following:

APFS: Advanced Diploma in Financial Planning issued by the CII

CFPCM: Certified Financial Planner

Adv DipFA: Advanced Diploma in Financial Advice issued by the IFS

Advisers at this level will have advanced expertise in the main areas of general financial planning.

Clients who require expert advice in matters such as investment management and portfolio construction, complex estate planning, inheritance tax mitigation, the use of trusts in family wealth planning, pension and pension transfers, QROPS, personal tax planning, business financial planning or general holistic financial advice will always be better off consulting a level 6 adviser.

If your adviser claims a CII qualification use this link to check their credentials are up to date. Anyone claiming CII should be on this register.

http://www.cii.co.uk/web/app/membersearch/MemberSearch.aspx

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CISI qualifications information:

Follow a progressive study route consistent with career paths in the financial services sector. Practitioners working in, or looking for a career in, Paraplanning should complete the level 4 Certificate in Paraplanning. Practitioners looking to work towards obtaining the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TM certification should complete the RDR-compliant Investment Advice Diploma with the Financial Planning & Advice unit included.

The CISI is able to offer candidates an FCA approved, RDR-compliant direct study pathway leading to the level 6 Diploma in Financial Planning and the globally recognised CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^TMcertification, the pinnacle designation for financial planning.

Holding a CISI qualificationmeans that you are qualified to give Pensions advice. Anyone who states they have this type of qualification should appear on the CISI register.

To check you financial advisers claims to a CISI follow the link below and pop their name into the search.

https://www.cisi.org/cisiweb2/cisi-website/join-us/cisi-member-directory

edit: After publishing this blog I was offered some more information about financial qualifications. Holding a DipFA gives you a qualification similar to the above levels 4-6 which means they are qualified to give financial advice on retail investments ie Pensions. Here’s their website so you can check any financial adviser who uses these letters after their name. Anyone claiming a DipFA should show up on their register.

https://www.libf.ac.uk/members-and-alumni/sps-and-cpd-register

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A company that rates well in being qualified & registered in Blevins Franks Spain, check out our series of blogs Qualified & registered? to see how the offshore companies who offer financial services rate on their staffs claimed qualifications, versus actually being qualified & registered – some of the results are VERY VERY scary.

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$Pension Life Blog - Qualified or not qualified that is the question - fractional scamming - Qualified Financial Adviser$

Some more points to bear in mind:

Even CII-registered qualified financial advisers can be bad guys. Despite being a fully qualified financial adviser AND a CII examiner, Stephen Ward, of Premier Pension Solutions has been responsible for a large number of scams. Ward was responsible for the ARK debacle, and he facilitated the CWM scam and Evergreen New Zealand QROPS. EDIT: Stephen Ward has been banned from acting as a pension trutsee!

Also, “introducers” lurk in the sidelines luring people in and then referring them in the direction of a qualified, regulated financial adviser, who in turn refers them to an insurance company, and finds a provider for the pension and investments etc etc. Unfortunately, this often results in not just one but several layers of commissions, charges and fees. These all take their toll on your fund. Often referred to as fractional scamming, all of these people get a chunk AND there’s an annual charge (regardless of performance – this is often a % of the original fund value); AND if/when you realise your fund is suffering you may well find there’s an exit fee to top it all off.

So when venturing out for financial advice, please ensure you know that your adviser has the correct qualifications and regulation for the advice they are giving. A good past-performance and track record would also be helpful.

Don´t be afraid to ask for proof of this – a qualified and ethical financial adviser will be happy to provide you with their credentials and background.

If the adviser veers away from the subject of qualifications, veer your custom and funds away quickly.

If the adviser avoids any question you would like answers to, avoiding giving him and his firm your custom.

Check all the facts and figures (absolutely all of them) before signing ANYTHING!

Get all the information in hard copy and read it at least three times or however many times you need to read it to be completely comfortable that you understand everything.

Be sure you know exactly where your funds are going, what the charges will be for the transfer and any annual fees and early exit penalties.

Keep a constant, regular check on the progress of your fund – many pension and investment providers now give online access to check the progress of your funds.

Choosing what to do with your pension can present a minefield of options and layers of paperwork which you might not understand. Ensuring the people you are dealing with are fully qualified financial advisers is a great start. Here´s a link to Pension Life members Pete and Val´s video, they were both victims of the CWM pension scam and have been left with decimated fund. Pete states,

“Assume nothing with these people, if you do your doomed.”

Please heed Pete´s advice and make sure you know all the facts about any proposed pension transfer and keep a regular check on how your pension is doing.

I am writing a series of blogs about pensions, pension scammers and how to safe guard your pension fund from fraudster. Please make sure you read as many as possible and ensure you know everything you should about your pension fund transfer. If we can educated the masses about pension fraud we can stop the scammers in their tracks – globally.

What is a Pension Scam?

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June 6, 2018
HOLBORN ASSETS – SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS

Spongebob Parker Squarepants of Holborn Assets has apparently been telling his salesmen that he has paid Glynis Broadfoot £150,000 in compensation for the destruction of her pension by Holborn Assets.

Not only is this a big porky pie (she hasn’t had a penny) but it is a cynical and dishonest tactic used to placate and dupe the Holborn Assets salesmen into wrongly believing that Spongebob has ethics. He doesn’t. If he had any morals, ethics or principles, he would come to the table and sort this appalling mess out.

Spongebob effectively stole Glynis’ life savings – a final salary scheme. Then invested her pension into an expensive and unnecessary insurance bond and purchased toxic, high-risk, professional-investor-only structured notes. He did all this to earn the maximum amount of commission – in the full knowledge that this would put her pension fund at risk. In fact, tactics identical to the Continental Wealth Management scam.

Glynis has now gone through more than five years of hell as she watched the systematic destruction of her pension. And now you can imagine how she feels reading reports of Holborn Assets’ vulgar and disgusting “jolly” in Tanzania which cost half a million quid. Despite making a series of totally inadequate offers, Spongebob has still to pay her a penny.

I hear on the grapevine that Spongebob is paranoid about any of his staff talking to me. He has even sacked one adviser – Claudia Shaw – on suspicion of communicating with me. It is true that quite a few Holborn Assets people have indeed communicated with me. These include – inter alia – Jerry Leahy, Joe Capaldi, Benjamin Thompson, Matthew Newman, James McMullen, Michael Cunningham, Ben Buckley, Marlon Bruges, Keren Bobker, Michele Carby and Syeda Al Iqtadar. Also, I’ve met Paul Reynolds and Chimaa Mefta at Holborn Assets’ Dubai offices. Also, Darin Brownlee-Jones tried to befriend me on Linkedin. Why hasn’t Spongebob sacked all of these people? He harbours a convicted killer and someone who was struck off and fined by the FCA. I’ve also been approached by various people claiming to work for Holborn Assets and offered a bribe to stop blogging about the company’s nefarious practices.

So, Uncle Spongebob – here’s my invitation. Stop sponging off Holborn Assets’ victims, come to the table and talk to me. Negotiate a decent redress package for Glynis and the others. Then, undertake to do business in an ethical, professional and compliant manner moving forward. Stop hosting binge-drinking, drug-snorting binges, and put in a place a proper compliance department.

Seriously, I don’t bite. I came to your office a couple of years back. You have ignored me since. So maybe now it is time for you to come to my office?

Simples! And then I can write nice blogs about you and the other Parkers saying what heroes you have been and what a good firm Holborn Assets is.

Your choice Mr. Squarepants 🙂

What is a Pension Scam?

May 30, 2018

Holborn Assets Cambodia Convention & Summit 2019

I am disappointed that Holborn Assets didn’t invite me to their Tanzania convention extravaganza – as it sounds like it was a lot of fun. And I do enjoy the occasional glass of Babycham and a nibble on a tiny sausage.

But I am hoping to be invited to the next one in Cambodia in 2019. As that is where Continental Wealth Management’s Darren Kirby has been hiding for the past few months, perhaps he’ll be popping in for a wee drinkie and a quick snort.

Apparently, the fun I missed included Holborn Assets’ scammer Nick Thompson being comatose the whole time. And Thompson showed up one morning with a black eye (was he pushed or did he fall?).

I also gather that the salesmen were threatening each other with knives. I am sure that was just some good-natured teasing and not some predatory tussle over territories or clients. Heaven forfend!

It has also been reported that the “advisers” at the party were openly crushing and smoking Xanac tablets. Apparently, Bob Parker stood by and just let this happen. I guess if all he is interested in is optimum sales he doesn’t really care how his snake-oil salesmen behave in public.

The motivation for being invited to the Holborn Assets booze/snort fest is described by Bob Parker thus:

Here we are at the end of Q1: if you are on $200k or more you are on target for Summit, and $75k or more puts you on target for Convention. By mid-April, we had 65 advisers with over $75k written – so this will be our biggest Convention yet! And, when it comes to laying on the big time, we know what goes off with a bang:

But what troubles me somewhat is that there is no mention of quality. Only volume. And Holborn Assets has no compliance function – so what Parker is exhorting his snake-oil salesmen to do is sell $200k of toxic investments in order to get invited to a seedy party where everybody gets drunk or stoned or both. Some inducement!

Apparently, Holborn Assets salesman Stefan Terry is leading the race in having a team who can scam victims out of their retirement savings and is well ahead with a total sales by end of Q1 of $1.2 million. I wonder how many people that means have lost their life savings?

This means that the “top teams” have written $8.5 million worth of business up to the end of March 2018. I wonder how many people’s lives have been ruined as a result of that scamming spree?

Holborn Assets cold-called thousands of potential victims in recent years, and persuaded many to transfer their pensions unnecessarily. The victims generally had good pension plans already but with the persuasion of the cold callers, they agreed to let Holborn Assets work their “magic” on their funds. The magic was investing the funds into toxic, high-risk investments such as New Earth Recycling and toxic structured notes, as well as applying sky-high fees for the privilege of losing some or all of the money.

And the Holborn Assets “crew” want to celebrate this amazing achievement and encourage their snake-oil salesmen to destroy as many more lives as possible.

Here’s the announcement of Holborn Assets’ next booze’n drugs fest:

“For Cambodia Convention & Summit 2019, we’re heading straight for the record books! We’re committing to more investment than ever before, more winners than ever before, and more planning than our 3 previous Conventions put together.”

Committing to more investment than ever before! Personally, I wouldn’t call that an investment, I would call it an obvious attempt to incentivise the Holborn Assets army of slimy salesmen to con as many victims into losing their life savings as possible. The amount spent on the last convention in Tanzania was somewhere in the region of £500,000. And I hear they will almost double this in 2019.

What I´d like to know is, if Holborn Assets have got all this spare cash to throw at booze and drugs, why aren´t they paying redress to their victims? At the Tanzania convention, unlimited supplies of booze were available 24/7, with advisors spending much of the duration in a booze-induced haze. These are the same “advisors” being entrusted with people’s precious life savings.

Tanzania was Holborn Assets’ third major convention. They boasted “We’re really getting the hang of putting conventions together. And then some! Like many of you, I have experienced similar FTSE 100 company events (with all the money that can be thrown at them), but none have matched the attention to detail and delivery of Holborn Conventions.”

Maybe they will one day get the hang of learning how to give sound and prudent advice on pensions and investments – and have an effective compliance function. And it would be nice if they had paid some degree of attention to detail when they were investing victims’ life savings into high-risk, illiquid, toxic funds.

Holborn Assets claims: “We are a family company with family values.” If “family values” means lying, defrauding, conning and walking away from the devastation left behind, this is one “family party” I definitely don´t want to be involved in. Bob Parker has brought his kids up to commit financial crime. That is not a family value any decent person would endorse.

Bob Parker has also lied about paying £150k in compensation to his victim Glynis Broadfoot. She has never received a penny from Holborn Assets for the destruction of her pension.

Just to be clear, the Holborn Assets “advisers” tagged in this blog are all those announced by Parker as being the top snake-oil salesmen.

TAGGED:

Tyrone Skipper

Craig Turner

Veena Singh

Adrian Lyons

Joseph Barnaby

Alexander Herbert

May 10, 2018

Holborn Assets “Smere Campaign”

Oh dear, Holborn Assets has fallen at the first fence – even before I’ve started the race! You couldn’t make it up. And typical of scammers, Holborn Assets is very concerned about the interests of their company and their profits, but couldn’t care less about the victims it has ruined.

This Leahy guy can’t even spell “smear”. But then he can’t spell “leaky” either – so what do you expect?

Leaky claims to have “over 17 years extensive knowledge of Operations, Technology, Space Management, Strategic Planning, Implementation of Facilities Management Applications, Project Management and Web Design”. I guess all that multi-tasking didn’t leave a lot of spare time for learning the English language. (And remind me never to use him to design my website).

Anyway, apart from the fact that this is a big advantage for Guardian Wealth Management (the equivalent of getting a much lighter jockey and a few oats before the race), this will sort the men from the boys at Holborn Assets. Those who have no conscience, ethics, spine, guts or balls will “un-friend” me as instructed. But those with strength of character will question whether they really want to be associated with a firm that routinely destroys clients’ life savings. The smart ones will realise that having “Holborn Assets” anywhere on their CV will be the kiss of death to their career.

Interestingly, I had an email from a chap this weekend who explained that he and a number of his colleagues had left the firm last year. He was very discreet about the reasons, but it was clear he was smart enough to see the writing on the wall and get out before his personal reputation was damaged. Who knows – maybe he even works for Guardian Wealth Management now?

I know which horse my money’s on!

From: Gerry Leahy <gerry.leahy@holbornassets.com>
Date: 22 April 2018 at 14:22:44 GMT+8
To: holborn_all@holbornassets.com
Subject: [Holborn All] LinkedIn request from Angela Brooks
Dear All,Many of you may have received an invitation to connect with someone called Angela Brooks.Please ignore this request and if you have already connected please disconnect immediately.This person is spearheading a smere campaign against the company and we are looking at our options including legal.Regards

Gerry J Leahy B Sc (Eng) C Eng

Chief Information Officer| Holborn Assets

Level 15 | Al Shafar Tower 1

Barsha Heights | Dubai, UAE

P.O. Box 333851

Tel: +971 4 457 3800

Fax: +971 4 457 3999

gerry.leahy@holbornassets.com

www.holbornassets.com

April 22, 2018

Guardian Wealth Management and the two-horse race with Holborn Assets

Guardian Wealth Management and the two-horse race with Holborn Assets

This is the start of Guardian Wealth Management week – following the end of Holborn Assets week. Apart from bleats from Holborn Assets salesmen that I was compromising their chances of destroying more victims’ pensions, nobody has come forward and proposed realistic compensation offers for the existing victims.

So, I thought it would be good to set up a “race” between Guardian Wealth Management and Holborn Assets – with two new, fresh, thoroughbred complaints. And see which firm passes the post first.

But, first, let us have a look at the Guardian Wealth Management culture behind the scenes from the horse’s mouth: the self-employed salesmen who peddle Guardian’s products. These are published on www.glassdoor.com – and give an interesting insight into the inner workings of a financial services firm. Here are some of the comments:

“opportunistic”

Doesn’t Recommend – worked at Guardian Wealth Management full-time

Pros – Quick way to earn cash

Cons – Not always ethical with advice or product advice

This tells us a lot – GWM is an unethical selling machine (from this unhappy salesman’s experience)

Another unhappy guy relates even more details about the failings of the company:

“I do not recommend working here”

Doesn’t Recommend. Current Employee – Business Development Manager

Cons – poor training; poor communication; high staff turnover; lack of support; poor salary; constant changes to the business that are not needed; self-employed

Advice to Management: Look after your staff and actually value people over money. Your sales training needs a lot of work and you need to support new recruits rather than just weighing heavily on a manager that really just hogs all the leads.

This review tells us that the people who work for Guardian Wealth Management are nothing more than self-employed salesmen who work for commission on top of a pitiful basic “wage”.

“Working at Guardian”

Recommends – Current Employee

Pros – Great earning potential.

Cons – Can be high pressure, need to remain motivated and driven to achieve.

Just what we thought: pressure to sell, sell, sell! Doesn’t seem to be anything other than a bag of carrots to drive these salesmen to realise the “great earning potential” – rather than to provide good and appropriate financial advice.

“Business Development Manager”

Recommends – BDM in London

Pros – I currently work as a BDM for Guardian in their London office. I’ve been here just 5 months and have learned a huge amount. The guys here are extremely helpful and friendly. It’s hard work but the culture really is an advocate of the harder you work, the higher the rewards with no ceiling in place it’s up to you how successful you want to be.

So, this business development manager has got sucked into the intense sales-driven culture of Guardian Wealth Management – and all he can see is rewards for himself, rather than quality advice for clients.

Against this backdrop of high-pressure stable manners – and the constant pressure to win, win, win, the poor dumb schmucks at Guardian Wealth Management have no idea (yet) that if they fail to meet their sales targets, they’ll just be chucked on the muck heap. It is all about quantity, rather than quality.

The constant drive to flog more products – irrespective of whether they are right for the clients – just turns what should be a firm that strives for excellence into a sales sweatshop. They are also heavily into cold calling – I should know, as they cold called me a year or so ago and claimed to have offices in Spain.

This last Guardian Wealth Manager salesman has highlighted the fact that there is no “ceiling” to success. But what he has missed out is the fact that there is no floor to the depths the salesmen will go to scam victims for profit.

This week is Guardian Wealth Management week – and I will be kicking it off with a race to see which firm of scammers – Holborn Assets or Guardian Wealth Management – will be first past the post to compensate their victims. One from Israel and one from Australia. The stakes are high; the going is firm; the prize is glittering (a glowing compliment on the Pension Life blog). Take your seats for an exciting race.

April 21, 2018
Holborn Assets – What a cheek!

Seems we can´t get enough of Holborn Assets’ cheek this week. CEO Bob Parker has sent out a Q1 2018 newsletter and included on his mailing list a very unsatisfied and traumatised client who, through Holborn Assets’ negligence, has suffered a significant loss to her pension fund, with no compensation – or even apology.

Glynis Broadfoot was a victim of Holborn Assets’ rotten advice and service in 2011 and which resulted in her losing a significant portion of what had originally been a final-salary pension which should never have been transferred in the first place. Holborn Assets refused to help her, and simply kept taking their extortionate fees from her ever-shrinking pension pot. They had invested her in high-risk, professional-investor-only structured notes which were totally inappropriate for a low-risk investor.

You can imagine Mrs. Broadfoot’s fury and disgust when this message popped up in her inbox.

In summary, despite the expensive advice given to Mrs. Broadfoot by Holborn Assets, and assurances that her pension would grow at 8% per annum, she ended up losing nearly a third of her fund. Despite the fund’s losses, Holborn Assets continued to apply their fees to the fund, totaling somewhere in the region of £11k!

Holborn Assets informed her, at the height of her distress over her losses, that they “had closed the case, and would not enter into any further correspondence”. Yet now, several years on, it appears she’s still on their mailing list – despite knowing full well they have left this victim’s retirement prospects in tatters.

Mrs. Broadfoot’s case was typical of “fractional scams“: expensive and unnecessary insurance bond (only purpose was to pay a fat commission to the scammers); expensive, high-risk, professional-investor-only structured notes (again, high commissions for the scammers and heavy losses for the victim); hefty advisor fees. This was a very obvious scam which caused great suffering for the victim who is resident in Spain – but Holborn Assets was not licensed to provide investment advice in Spain.

In the years since Mrs. Broadfoot was scammed, Bob Parker did start to engage half-heartedly with a process of negotiating compensation for her losses. But so far she has not received one penny. Her local government final salary pension scheme – which she was conned into sacrificing by these unlicensed scammers – would have provided her with a guaranteed, index-linked pension for life and she could have retired comfortably. Instead, she has a seriously damaged fund which is unlikely to ever recover and provide her with the retirement income she needed and deserved.

So, far from getting the “best level of service and advice available” as boasted by Bob Parker, Mrs. Broadfoot was conned, scammed, fleeced and then dumped by Holborn Assets.

Which brings me on to the Trust Pilot reviews. Only 2% scored Holborn Assets as average or poor. Which is very surprising – given the number of people who report similar stories to Mrs. Broadfoot’s. But I think it is likely that those who gave four or five stars, haven’t yet found out what their losses are. In fact, some of these reviewers admit they were cold called by Holborn Assets. We know for sure Claudia Shaw was flogging the high-risk Premier New Earth Recycling UCIS fund to her victims and that there have been heavy investment losses.

One person who has given Holborn Assets a “poor” rating on Trust Pilot is a Mr. Norton who writes:

Not very impressed

I don’t believe anyone from Holborn has contacted me since September last year. In August 2016 I was contacted and advised to switch my policy which seemed ridiculous considering the additional charges I would incur, the fact it was even suggested causes me concern.

Then in September 2016, I was contacted to recommend my wealth manager for an award, again the audacity of this makes me wonder.

I have no idea on what your investment performance to date is over the past 12 months and I have not been given any confidence how my investments will be managed going forward now that I have finished paying your fees and I actually begin to get money invested.

I do plan to visit within the next month and hopefully by that stage you in a position to assure me I did not make a big mistake investing my money with you.
Regards
Ian Norton

Another victim has complained directly to Pension Life about the appalling treatment he has had at the hands of Holborn Assets:

“Since 2013, the fund has not done anything at all. The fees are much too high, excessive transactions have been made to earn themselves money on my account and the investments went down in value. There is no communication with Holborn Assets and they are unwilling to discuss this matter with me or to do anything about it.”

So, as the cheeky Bob Parker is aiming to infiltrate South Africa with his new weapon – the bright-eyed and bushy-chinned Lourens Reichert – I thought now would be a good time to make friends with Reichert and see if he can put some pressure on Uncle Bob. Reichert will, no doubt, be very pleased to help me sort these victims out – as he has a big bulging lump in his trousers courtesy of Bob’s golden handshake.

I might even nip down to Johannesburg and have a cup of tea and a cheeky biscuit with him. No doubt, he won’t want the sordid details of Holborn Assets’ scams to compromise his quest to conquer South Africa. If the natives find out just what his colleagues have been up to, he might find himself on the wrong end of a Zulu spear.

April 19, 2018
A win for the FCA against Capital Alternatives
Pension Life is pleased to report that the FCA has woken up long enough to do a spot of regulating and has won an important case over the promotion of unregulated investment schemes. The firm flogging the schemes, Capital Alternatives, must pay back nearly £17m to investors.

The FCA alleged that Capital Alternatives used “false, misleading and deceptive statements” to lure unsuspecting investors into four toxic, high-risk investments (scams) between 2009 and 2013. Capital Alternatives, ran investment schemes/scams involving rice farm harvests in Sierra Leone and carbon credits across Sierra Leone, Brazil and Australia.

In reality, Capital Alternatives sold more land to investors than it actually owned.

Court proceedings have been taking place since July 2013, with The High Court deciding in February 2014 that the schemes/scams were collective investment schemes which could not be lawfully operated by the defendants. Since this date defendants have been appealing the decision.

It must be highlighted that Capital Alternatives are not the only defendants involved in this case. This is perhaps why proceedings have taken so long. In fact, the FCA stated that there are a staggering 15 more defendants involved in this case.

The FCA lists the defendants:
1. Capital Alternatives Limited
2. Capital Secretarial Limited
3. Capital Organisation Limited
4. Capital Administration Services Limited
5. MH Trustees Limited
6. Marcia Hargous
7. Renwick Haddow
8. Richard Henstock (case settled)
9. African Land Limited
10. Robert McKendrick
11. Alan Meadowcroft
12. Regency Capital Limited
13. Reforestation Projects Limited
14. Mark Ayres/Eyres
15. Mark Gibbs
16. the estate of David Waygood (case settled).
The eighth and sixteenth defendants settled their cases previously and have paid £33,000 and £200,000 towards compensation for the investors. The FCA has received this money and will hold it until the Court issue further directions to the FCA about the return of money to victims.

The bad news for investors in Capital Alternatives, is that the High Court’s decision is still open to appeal. The FCA can proceed to obtain monies from the Defendants only when no further appeals are made. In the meantime, the FCA is seeking new injunctions restraining the assets of some of the defendants. We sincerely hope this means there will be some funds left to be returned to the victims of this scam.

But it would be better news if the other 14 defendants find it in their conscience to settle out of court and put the victims out of their misery. It is terrible to find out that you have put hard-earned money into high-risk, illiquid or even worthless investments.

FCA Director of Enforcement Mark Steward has been reported as saying:

“This judgment should send a clear message to all of those who use corporate facades to sell dubious investments. We will do what it takes to hold them to account for their misconduct.

We are acutely aware from experience that the risk to investors who deal with unauthorised firms is that most, if not all, investors are likely only to get a fraction of their money back.

Consumers should recognise that there are huge risks involved when investing with unauthorised businesses.”

Investors should be aware that investments into sustainable/renewable energies, farming and recycling schemes are favorites of scammers. They entice you in with promises of your investment being good for the environment. However, they are rarely good for your pocket. James Hay and Elysian Bio fuel is one example of toxic investment using biofuels as a lure.

In Novemeber 2017 we also wrote about the SFOs letter to Frank Field. The letter highlighted cases of prosecutions against pensions fraud.

Sustainable Agroenergy (SAE) Plc: investors were told their investments were in biofuel products, that land was owned in Cambodia and planted with Jatropha trees – a tree with highly toxic fruit that could be used to produce biofuel. At the time of sale, there was already evidence to show that the product was neither sustainable nor profitable.

New Earth Recycling fund – an investment scam promoted by a number of dodgy firms including Robert Parker of Holborn Assets and Paul Herd of Elite Wealth Management. This high-risk, toxic investment offered big fat introduction commissions. The introducers were the only ones to profit from this investment.

The BARRATT AND DALTON PENSION SCAM: – one couple fell victim to this scam despite being advised by their pension provider that it could be a scam. They received a lump sum and were told their pension was invested in truffle trees. After reporting the case to the police, they were later informed that their lump sum was from their own funds and HMRC promptly served them with a large tax bill.

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As always, Pension Life would like to remind you that if you are planning to transfer any pension funds, make sure that you are transferring into a legitimate scheme. To find out how to avoid being scammed, please see our blog:

What is a pension scam?

Follow Pension Life on twitter to keep up with all things pension related, good and bad.
April 12, 2018
PREMIER NEW EARTH RECYCLING FUND IN LIQUIDATION

Investors are likely to have lost all their money in Premier New Earth Recycling fund – now in liquidation. The liquidator is Deloittes and they can’t say much, if anything, about what is happening as they are looking into the possibility of claims against third parties and don’t want to prejudice any possible action.

Rather than getting into the nitty gritty of the liquidation of this fund – and the appalling possibility that the investors may very well have lost everything – let us take a good look at the fund itself.

It is a UCIS. Nothing more to say – except:

“Specialist, qualifying, and qualifying-type experienced investor funds are unregulated collective investment schemes which are neither approved nor reviewed by IOMFSA. Once launched, the funds must be registered with the authority within 14 days. These types of funds cannot be sold to the retail public. Access to such funds is only available where investors confirm that they meet the fund type’s minimum entry criteria. This includes a statutory certification that they have read the scheme’s offering document and understand and accept the specific risks associated with that type of fund.”

So, instead of writing lots of fascinating stuff about the wonderful topic of generating energy from rubbish (which I am sure is really interesting and good for the planet), why don’t we stick with the unchallengeable fact that the fund was a UCIS and should not have been promoted to retail investors. End of. No argument. Non-negotiable. Talk to the hand. Stick your UCIS where the sun doesn’t shine.

In fact, the same was true (should have been true) of the Connaught bridging loan fund; EEA Life Settlements; LM; Store First, Park First, Trafalgar Multi-Asset Fund and Blackmore Global. So why did so many advisers promote them and invest their clients’ money in them? £$£$£$£$£!!! Commissions. Backhanders. Sandwiches. And the distressed investors are now paying the appalling price for rogue advisers’ greed and negligence.

And what does this look like from the investor’s point of view?

Appalling investment losses on Premier New Earth Recycling

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As always, Pension Life would like to remind you that if you are planning to transfer any pension funds, make sure that you are transferring into a legitimate scheme. To find out how to avoid being scammed, please see our blog:

What is a pension scam?

FOLLOW PENSION LIFE ON TWITTER TO KEEP UP WITH ALL THINGS PENSION RELATED, GOOD AND BAD.

August 2, 2017
HOLBORN ASSETS – HEALTH WARNING

Holborn Assets Warning: their rogue advisers can seriously damage your life savings – and your life

Holborn Assets: This Toxic Dubai Firm Comes with a Health Warning

Holborn Assets can seriously damage your life savings – and indeed your health and even life.

Holborn Assets does have a few decent advisers. When I published the “Champagne Killer” blog last week, I was contacted by over a dozen advisers who asked me (courteously and respectfully) to remove their names and profile links from the blog. This I did immediately in all cases except Gerard Frew who was simply rude and abusive.

Quite a few of these advisers had had no idea they worked in such a cess pit. None of them seemed to have had any idea about Paul Reynolds and Darin Brownlee-Jones. They appeared unaware that the FCA had ruled both individuals unsuitable to be financial advisers. And they didn’t seem to know that some advisers at Holborn Assets are routinely destroying victims’ life savings – and Bob Parker simply shrugs the complaints off.

A couple of the “good guys” raised the point that if one person at Barclays had done something wrong, it did not necessarily mean that all the other staff at Barclays were rotten. A valid point, perhaps, but if there was a rotten apple at Barclays, they would get sacked – whereas Bob Parker deliberately goes out and picks rotten apples because they have no principles, no scruples, no hesitation in scamming people out of their pensions and investments. And they make Uncle Bob lots of money.

The advisers who contacted me claimed to have unblemished records (which they didn’t want to be besmirched by the likes of Reynolds and Brownlee-Jones). But the question is: if they have good records, what on earth are they doing working at Holborn Assets? If they care about their professional reputations, why not go and work for another firm which is not full of cowboys and run by a man who cares not a jot for the distress his firm causes to innocent victims.

Let’s have the drains up on how Holborn Assets really works and see how and why it is so “successful”.

HOLBORN ASSETS KUALA LUMPUR:

Holborn Assets has a team of about 50 “contact generators” based in Kuala Lumpur (where labour is cheap). They trawl social media for names and contact details.

The leads are passed to a company in the UK set up by Holborn Assets to run as a cold calling “boiler room”. They used to use a boiler room in Manchester for their cold calls, but now they’ve got their own: The Retirement Shop. The company was set up in September 2016 and has two directors: James Patrick Parker and John Cornelius Parker who was arrested and charged after extreme violence against fans and police at a football match in 2002. Presumably, they are relatives of Bob Parker – James lives in the UK and John in Dubai. In fact, when you call The Retirement Shop, James Parker answers the phone.

Holborn Assets’ cold calling boiler room, The Retirement Shop, has around 40 callers – mostly young, poorly-educated people desperate for work. Bob Parker pretends this company is in Bournemouth, but it is actually based in Sale, Cheshire. The cold callers basically bombard people throughout the UK and offshore with calls designed to book a telephone call and/or meeting appointments with Holborn Assets advisers.

Bob Parker is enthusiastic about this “lead generation” scam as the cold calls come from a UK number, so it’s less likely the potential victims are going to drop the call. Holborn Assets also uses a voice-over IT system that can change the number so that victims in – say – Saudi will see a Saudi number come up even though the call is actually coming from the UK.

Holborn Assets openly admits to doing cold calling in Saudi but in Dubai Bob Parker wants to conceal the company’s cold calling operation so he pretends the calls come from an allegedly entirely separate and independent company (The Retirement Shop) – which is, of course, controlled and run by Bob Parker himself. This is what Parker calls “warm calling”.

The way that Holborn Assets’ cold (or warm) calling operation works is that they have 16 to 20 year olds calling from The Retirement Shop to potential victims in the UK or anywhere in the world. Working from a prepared script, the caller asks the person if they’ve got a pension, and if they keep up to date with it. The caller is instructed to tell the victims the company works alongside HMRC, then to ask them loads of questions such as whether they know about legislative changes. Then the caller says he will get a “specialist” to call – so the lead is now “warmed up”. Bob Parker thinks this is “quite clever really”.

How does The Retirement Shop “package” itself? The company claims that: “We have assisted thousands of clients all over the world to transfer their frozen UK pensions and plan for their retirement. To date, we have helped successfully transfer over 500 million Pounds worth of frozen UK pensions. We are amongst the best at what we do.” But as the company was only registered in September 2016, how can it possibly have “assisted thousands” of clients since then? But the thought of Holborn Assets handling £500m worth of pension transfers is utterly blood curdling.

The Retirement Shop‘s website further claims to be “UK Qualified”, “Experts in UK Tax Law”, have “Knowledge in UK Pension Transfers” and “We also link you up with UK qualified pension specialists across the globe”. In fact, none of these claims is true – especially the last one as the only “pension specialists” they link people up with are those at Holborn Assets Dubai. And that firm is not licensed to provide advice in many jurisdictions.

Holborn Assets rogue advisers can wipe out at least half your life savings in a heartbeat.

Having been cold called and “warmed up” by Holborn Assets’ boiler room scammers, what sort of investment advice is the victim likely to receive? Various victims have seen heavy losses due to negligent, unregulated, unqualified advice into entirely inappropriate, high-risk, illiquid assets. This includes one victim’s $600k life savings – half of which were invested in New Earth Recycling (which, of course, was paying the best investment introduction commissions).

So why would decent, ethical, conscientious advisers choose to stay at Holborn Assets? Do they really want all this toxic, unethical practice to rub off on them? Do they want their leads to come from Bob Parker’s boiler room scammers in Kuala Lumpur and “Bournemouth”?

Lastly, why don’t they all get together and tie Bob Parker to a chair then slap him with a wet fish and a copy of the Bible until he agrees to pay proper compensation to the Holborn Assets victims?

July 24, 2017
HYPOCRISY BY PARKER – HOLBORN ASSETS DUBAI – MONTFORT INTERNATIONAL

Holborn Assets’ Bob Parker commits a gloat too far.

Holborn Assets Dubai – under the questionable leadership of Bob Parker – has been responsible for ruining quite a number of victims’ pensions. With a deft waggle of the Holborn Assets magic wand, a pension transferred from a gold-plated final salary scheme can be reduced by at least 50% in just a couple of years. Trouble is, the magic kind of runs out of steam if asked to work in reverse.

Glynis Broadfoot and various other victims in Spain were “advised” by dodgy Holborn Assets’ advisers to transfer their pensions into a QROPS with Gower Pensions in Guernsey. Then the victims’ pensions were invested in toxic, illiquid, high-risk, professional-investor-only funds and shrank relentlessly. The problem was that Holborn Assets had no license to provide pension or investment advice in Spain. This is the sort of scam that the CNMV, the Spanish investment regulator, refers to as being operated by “chiringuitos” (bar flies) which translates as “scammers”. And the UK Pensions Regulator clearly refers to scammers as criminals.

Holborn Assets’ home – a low-rise advisory firm amongst the high-rise buildings

So why is Bob Parker – from Dubai – gloating over Geraint Davies from Surrey? OK, Geraint’s firm Montfort International has been sanctioned – and very publicly so. And, knowing Geraint I believe he will take his punishment pragmatically and stoically. He has fought back from other challenges in the past and he will fight back from this. But at the end of the day, whatever other faults he may have, he does have respect for the establishment, the law, the regulators and the ethical sector of the financial advisory profession.

I suspect – if Geraint saw Bob the Knob’s post on the LinkedIn QROPS group – he will have had an ironic chuckle at the Bible-thumper’s hypocrisy. And if he had known that Bob’s response to his various victims’ distress and pleas for help had been “buzz off – case closed” he would most probably have been enraged that Parker the Not-So-Magic Marker should remark on the mote in Geraint’s eye and cynically gloss over the socking great forest in his own.

Of course, Geraint himself will certainly know that Parker’s top salesman is Paul Reynolds who has been sanctioned by the FCA (banned from regulated activities due to lack integrity and fined nearly £300k) and may even have had a wry smile to himself that a man who professes to be a devout Christian is prepared to employ a publicly-condemned pariah of the profession. But, of course, Reynolds is Holborn Assets’ best salesman – flogging toxic assets to ruin their clients – so it is worth keeping him in order to keep the wheels of Parker’s Rolls Royce well oiled.

So, am just wondering how the devout Christian Bob Parker is getting Holborn Assets’ DB pension transfers done now? What dodgy outfit is he using? Because it won’t be anything ethical or honourable. And whichever firm it is, it will be helping Holborn Assets ruin hundreds – or even thousands – of victims have their pensions decimated by execrable, unregulated investment advice.

Despite Parker’s hypocritical post on LinkedIn, I think Geraint Davies’ firm Montfort comes out of this considerably better than Holborn Assets. I have no doubt Geraint will have more success in plucking the mote out of his eye than Parker will in taking a whole sawmill out of his.

July 3, 2017
HOLBORN ASSETS’ NEW CALCULATOR

Holborn Assets’ Bob Parker needs a bit of help with his ‘rithmetic

Holborn Assets has been trying to calculate how much victim Glynis Broadfoot is due in compensation for loss to her pension fund invested by them for the past five years. But it is an uphill struggle and I am not entirely sure that poor old Bob Parker hasn’t either lost his marbles altogether, or never actually did maths in the first place. Either way I’ve decided to buy him a new calculator.

Let’s look at the maths – they are quite straightforward. When Holborn Assets first approached Mrs. Broadfoot, they promised her a “free” pension transfer from her final salary scheme with her local authority employer into a QROPS with Gower Pensions. They assured her this was in her best interests.

Five years and thousands of sleepless nights later, Mrs. Broadfoot has watched the value of her pension fund sink relentlessly while Holborn Assets has showed not a drop of concern and even refused to talk to her about it. They have said “the case is closed”.

To give them their due, Holborn Assets has now at last started coming to the table and have been making offers of compensation for Mrs. Braodfoot’s losses. They started at thruppence and have now upped their offer to £35,000. But let’s have a look at the maths:

Original cash equivalent transfer = £195,105

Actual transfer = £146,379

Big chunk of money inexplicably got lost = £48,726

At a cautious low-risk growth of 4% per year, pension should now be worth £178,000

But Mrs. Broadfoot has £106,730 left of her pension thanks to Holborn Assets

So, even forgetting the £48k that Holborn “lost”, Mrs. Broadfoot needs £71,270 to put her back to where she should be. And then there is compensation for the damage this has done to her health for five years.

So come on Bob, do the maths! We all know Paul Reynolds is making you a fortune so you can afford to pay proper compensation to your victim.

And another thing, Holborn Assets is using cold-calling scammers in Manchester to sign up more victims. Here in Spain, the leads generated by this scam are followed up by Holborn Assets salesman Jason Ryder who purports to have an office in Barcelona and another one in Marbella.

Just hope it is not bank of Dunlop!

Now, come on Uncle Bob, you know Holborn Assets has no license to operate in Spain or provide financial, pension or investment advice here. That is how Mrs. Broadfoot got scammed in the first place and lost such a huge chunk of her pension. So cold calling, scamming, destroying pensions, offering derisory compensation, ignoring a victim’s pleas for help…..not very nice. Get your chequebook out mate!

Finally, how is Paul Reynolds doing? I met him at your office in 2015 you know. He is quite handsome. I hear he is your best salesmen which is why you won’t get rid of him – he is making you so much money.

And what about your 40+ other “consultants”? Don’t any of them care about your firm’s professional reputation?

June 5, 2017