Tag: Holborn Assets

Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

Structured notes – say NO to them if an adviser wants to invest your pension in them. They are high-risk investments which are for professional investors ONLY – and not for ordinary retail investors – especially pensions.

Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

Structured notes have been used as pension investments for some years. Many advisers don’t understand them – and certainly, no retail pension investors understand them either. Structured notes are definitely not the low risk, high return investments originally promised – and the capital is NOT protected as claimed by some advisers.

As in the above example, it is a disgrace that structured note providers such as Commerzbank, Nomura, RBC and Leonteq have allowed their toxic products to be used for retail pension savers. Even when these rotten products have nosedived repeatedly, these dishonest and dishonourable providers keep on flogging them to destroy victims’ retirement savings.

Along with the rogue advisers – such as the scammers from Holborn Assets and Continental Wealth Management – and the rogue structured note providers, there are also rogue insurance companies who accept these toxic, high-risk, professional-investor-only investments. These insurers know full well that accepting these notes will doom the policyholders to poverty in retirement, but they don’t care. Some of the worst of these “life offices” are Old Mutual International, SEB, and Generali. These companies are no better than scammers and really should be called “death offices” since they effectively kill off thousands of victims’ life savings with their extortionate charges.

Commerzbank, Nomura, RBC and Leonteq all claim to be “award winning and innovative companies” and yet they show zero compassion to the victims who lose huge proportions of their retirement savings. The structured note providers keep paying commissions to the scammers – ranging from 6% to 8% of the investments. And then, when the structured notes go belly up, they simply sell more of the same toxic rubbish to the same scammers in an attempt to further ruin the victims.

So what the hell are structured notes? And why should investors say NO to them?

A structured note is an IOU from an investment bank that uses derivatives to create exposure to one or more investments. For example, you can have a structured note betting on the S&P 500 Price Index, the Emerging Market Price Index, or both. The combinations are almost limitless.

Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

Structured notes are frequently peddled by less-scrupulous financial advisers – as well as outright scammers – as a “high-yield, low-risk” supposedly backdoor way to own stocks. However, regulators have warned that investors can get burned – which they frequently do. If the investment banks can flog it, they will make just about any toxic cocktail you can dream up. In reality, a structured note is an unsecured debt issued by a bank or brokerage firm – and the amount of money the investor might (or might not) get back is pegged to the performance of stocks or broad market indexes.

Read more: Structured Notes: Buyer Beware!

On the surface, the ‘cocktails’ the structured note providers make seems like they could generate a great return. However, the truth is they often benefit the financial adviser rather than the investors.

Structured notes are suitable for professional investors only – and the fact sheets issued by the providers state this clearly. Whilst they do offer high returns if successful, they are also high risk with no protection on the amount invested. Structured notes should not be used for pensions.

Continental Wealth Management(CWM) invested over a thousand low to medium risk clients’ retirement savings in structured notes – mostly provided by Commerzbank, Nomura, RBC and Leonteq. These clients now have seriously decimated funds and are worried sick. But Commerzbank, Nomura, RBC and Leonteq have shown neither remorse for their toxic, high-risk, illiquid products nor concern for the hundreds of victims.

OMI (Quilter), Generali and SEB have also been totally disinterested in the thousands of failed structured notes they have facilitated. Indeed they are even charging the victims crippling early exit penalties when they decide to get out of the expensive and pointless insurance bonds which are further eating into the remaining funds.

Most structures notes have no guarantee, so their worth often depreciates to less than the paper they are printed on. Much like a bet at the races, if you bet £10 on Noble Nag to win in the 2.30 at Kempton Park at ten to one, you are guaranteed to win £100 if the horse wins. But if the horse doesn’t win, you say goodbye to your money.

Most structured notes are dressed up to look appealing to the uninformed victim. But in reality they are high risk and illiquid and can result in total decimation of a victim’s life savings. The advisors rarely disclose the commissions they are earning from the purchase of the structured notes (or from the insurance bond). Plus, once the structured notes start showing a serious loss, the adviser just dismisses this as “only a paper loss”. As the advisors have already taken their cut, they are rarely bothered if this high-risk investment does lose the client money.

So if you hear the term ‘structured note’ in connection with your retirement fund, just say ‘NO’. The only people profiting from this type of investment are the advisers.

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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.

January 27, 2018
STM Fidecs – Trafalgar Multi Asset Scam

STM Fidecs, the Gibraltar-based trustee firm used for the Trafalgar Multi Asset Scam, is now the subject of large numbers of complaints to the Gibraltar authorities. Hundreds of victims of XXXX XXXX’s unlicensed “advice” transferred safe UK pensions to a Gibraltar STM Fidecs QROPS and then he invested 100% of their funds into his own fund – Trafalgar Multi Asset (now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office).   These victims have now submitted evidence and testimony. These reports and complaints are against both XXXX XXXX and STM Fidecs for their part in this scam.

STM Fidecs are also being reported to the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission for the attention of:

Annette Perales, Head of Financial Crime

and

Zoe Westwood, Head of Enforcement, Legal, Enforcement and Policy

The Serious Fraud Office has been investigating this scam – in which STM Fidecs played an integral and crucial part – for some months. XXXX XXXX and one of the STM Fidecs directors have been arrested. XXXX’s office was searched and no doubt STM Fidecs’ offices were also searched. Obviously, the victims all want those responsible for this scam to serve maximum prison sentences.

The STM Fidecs website makes the following grand-sounding claim:

“The backbone of STM is its staff. We have people who have worked for us for 20 years who are the heart and soul of our business. If we didn’t have outstanding staff, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.”

The only thing “outstanding” would be an immediate admission of their guilt and negligence, as well as an undertaking by STM Fidecs to compensate their victims for the £ millions of losses they are facing due to STM Fidecs’ complicity with this scam. Let’s examine some of these staff and see how much backbone they really have.

Alan Roy Kentish
ACA ACII AIRM
Role: Chief Executive Officer

Alan Kentish, CEO, claims to be a qualified chartered accountant specialising in the financial services industry. So you would have thought he would have known not to accept business from an unlicensed firm – XXXX XXXX’s Global Partners Limited (now Tourbillon). He ought to have known that UK residents should not be transferred to a QROPS at all. He would have known that members’ funds should not be 100% invested in one UCIS fund (illegal to be promoted to UK residents). And he should have recognised that it is a clear conflict of interest for members to be invested in a fund for which their adviser was also the investment manager.

What has Alan Kentish done to put this right? How much compensation has he offered to the hundreds of distressed investors? Has he engaged with the victims and assured them that STM Fidecs acknowledges their responsibility, liability and culpability? No – Alan Kentish has done nothing except pull up the drawbridge-like a spineless coward.

David Easton, Head of Pensions at STM Group PLC

“David Easton, Head of Pensions for STM Group PLC joined STM in October 2014 as Managing Director of the Gibraltar pensions business and is also a board member of the pensions businesses in Malta and the UK. Since 1990 David has worked in the financial services arena specialising in pensions administration. David is responsible for driving the expansion of STM Group’s international pensions division as well as personal and occupational pension schemes in Gibraltar and personal pensions in the UK.”

So, responsible for driving the expansion of STM’s pension business into an investment scam run by a known serial scammer? Well done David. Your “primary focus” was very clear: put UK residents into a QROPS and then allow all of them to be 100% invested into an illegal UCIS. And to what extent has he engaged with the hundreds of distressed victims of this scam? Zero. Another spineless coward who refuses to speak to these people. He will neither explain nor apologise.

Other members of this spineless team include Therese Neish – Chief Finance Officer, Liz Plummer – Company Secretary, Ian Farr – Group Head of Distribution, Linda Martin – Technical Services Manager. There are of course many more – none of whom has shown the slightest concern for the plight of the victims who have lost £21 million worth of pensions between them.

Backbone? Heart? Soul? Absolute rubbish!

A former employee of STM Fidecs sent me the following statement:

“We were told not to go to the Pension Life website so as not to give her any traffic and SEO rankings.  I believed them. More fool me. This is why I am now checking it out and am amazed at what’s on there.

I was asked to dig the dirt on Angela Brooks and I did, believing STM had not been aware of the Trafalgar stuff but had instead been duped.  It’s more than apparent now that they fully knew what they were doing. They have sent Angela lawyers letters insisting she cease from mentioning them on her website or will take legal action against her.

Shot in the dark because everything she says is true so they can’t gag her.

Glynis Broadfoot (a victim of Holborn Assets and Gower Pensions) who also used to work for STM Fidecs, was marched out. We had no anti-bullying policy in place at the time and Glynis was being bullied. They marched her out on trumped up charges.

If I had known this at the time I would have objected. Glynis won’t speak though. They must have frightened her to death.

Outstanding staff? I think not. The only thing the STM Fidecs staff excel at is bullying. And bullies are, of course, the biggest cowards of all.

Dolphin Trust – a UCIS which was illegal to be sold to UK residents

The Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund liquidators say this is the most obvious scam they have ever seen. Purely designed through ‘layering’ to misappropriate funds, the liquidators are just glad the administrators pulled the plug at £21m and not later. At the height of the success of this scam, STM Fidecs was accepting more than £1 million a month from UK residents (none of whom should have transferred into a QROPS at all) and allowing it all to be invested in XXXX XXXX’s illegal UCIS.

Apparently, Dolphin Trust (the German fund which borrows money to refurbish derelict government and listed buildings) has “cooperated” and the liquidators have found some other assets as well, although getting them may prove tricky since they will have been vigorously hidden. Dolphin Trust is typically found alongside car parking spaces, store pods, eucalyptus plantations, truffle trees and other toxic crap peddled by the scammers.

The liquidators reckon the victims might get 50% back less costs, so after the liquidators’ costs that would be nearer 30% net. But STM Fidecs know all this, but have deliberately hidden it from the victims.

It is human to err, and STM Fidecs is staffed by humans (albeit spineless ones). But what is not forgivable is to fail to come to the table and assure the victims they will be compensated for their losses and profound distress. STM Group has been bragging that it has plenty of money and will be buying up other trust companies to make their business bigger and more profitable.

None so blind….

STM Fidecs’ victims feel they shouldn’t be in the pension trustee business at all since they are clearly incompetent, dishonest and dishonorable. This belief is clearly correct since STM Fidecs also accepted transfers from Continental Wealth Management (unlicensed “chiringuitos”) and then allowed the victims’ pensions to be 100% invested in high-risk, professional-investor-only structured notes. As a result, the STM members are facing heavy losses.

STM Fidecs is also mentioned in Offshore Leaks and was involved in the Cornerstone Friendly investment scam.

Hundreds of victims have reported both XXXX XXXX and STM Fidecs to the SFO and the GFSC for fraud

The Gibraltar authorities must now show how “highly regulated and transparent” Gibraltar is. As things stand, the evidence is that Gibraltar is full of thieves, scammers and scoundrels. The chiringuitos love being there because the regulation is widely accepted as being as spineless as the staff and directors at STM Fidecs.

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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.

October 30, 2017
REGULATORS AND SCAMMERS
Regulators have got to do some effective regulating

Regulators and scammers; cops and robbers; cowboys and indians. Each has their role: cowboys fire their six shooters and dodge the injuns’ arrows valiantly; cops drive their police cars at breakneck speed to corner the robbers in a dark alley; regulators waggle their flaccid willies and watch the scammers walk all over them.

In the week my great friend had his appendix out (somewhat hurriedly as it happens) I thought I would write a slight variation on the Three Sausages poem:

Regulation, regulation, regulation,
Three scammers went to the station,
One got crushed, one got killed,
And one got a huge operation.

The sizzling scammers need to be put behind bars – and the keys need to be thrown away.

Now, I am not suggesting I want the scammers crushed or killed – nor even that they suffer the same pain and discomfort that my mate has gone through in hospital this past week. But I do want them stopped from harming more victims and destroying more life savings. And, of course, put behind bars where the only thing they can scam is the soap on a rope.

WHAT DO REGULATORS NEED TO DO AS A MATTER OF URGENCY?

All regulators in all jurisdictions where has been a history of scamming and mis-selling need to work closely with governments, tax authorities, financial crime units, ombudsmen and the press. There has to be a “zero tolerance” attitude to scams and scammers – and all those responsible have to be brought to justice. And publicly so. It is clear that most regulators – including the FCA – are limp, lazy and useless and this has to change. Here are some examples of regulators’ failures in each jurisdiction:

UK:
- Allowing unregulated firms to provide financial, pension and investment advice freely and without sanction in the UK. Sometimes these firms have an insurance license – sometimes none at all
- Not sanctioning regulated firms for clear breaches and/or fraud – such as Gerard Associates which was introducing Ark victims to Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions as far back as 2010, and was then providing “advice” to Ward’s London Quantum victims
- Ignoring firms such as Fast Pensions who have defied 37 Pensions Ombudsmen’s determinations
- Failing to coordinate criminal prosecutions against the scammers behind numerous scams who ruined thousands of lives and cost hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of life savings
- Failing to use existing legislation provided by FSMA 2000 to prosecute advisors (regulated and/or unregulated) overtly contravening the ban on communicating invitations to retail clients to invest in Unregulated Collective Investment Schemes
- Announcing ineffective crack-down plans by newly-appointed government minsters who have failed to grasp the enormity of the pension scamming industry and the desperate plight of thousands of pension scam victims
GIBRALTAR:
- Failing to police and sanction negligent pension trustees such as STM Fidecs for accepting members introduced by an unlicensed adviser: XXXX XXXX of Global Partners Ltd/The Pension Reporter – who was also the fund manager for the UCIS that all the victims had their pensions invested in and which is now being wound up
- Refusing to communicate with members on the progress of the winding up of the Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund which had been run by XXXX XXXX
- Omitting to take action against STM Fidecs for its role in the Cornerstone Friendly Society investment scam
MALTA:
- Taking no action against Trustees, Integrated Capabilities Malta Ltd (ICML) for accepting retail members from an unlicensed firm in the Czech Republic and knowingly permitting investments in Nunn McCreesh’s UCIS: Blackmore Global, as well as Malta-licensed fund Symphony – a sub-fund of the Nascent Platform that is licensed only for professional investors
- Not sanctioning Customs House Global, that runs the Nascent Platform, for inadequate due diligence and accepting unscrupulous sub-fund managers (such as XXXX XXXX, investment manager of failed TMAF and later, the recently wound up Symphony Fund) that exploit the platform for the sole purpose of pension scamming
CAYMAN ISLANDS:
- Not sanctioning Investors Trust for accepting high-risk UCIS investments for retail investors: Blackmore Global and Symphony
CZECH REPUBLIC:
- Allowing an unlicensed firm – Square Mile Financial Services – to operate freely in the EU, providing pension and investment advice with only an insurance mediation license
ISLE OF MAN AND IRELAND:
- Ignoring insurance companies which accept investments in UCIS funds and professional-investor-only instruments for retail investors
- Failing to recognise those registered Closed-Ended Investment Companies whose true nature is as a Collective Investment irrespective of their form, such as Blackmore Global (registered number 010221V), that intentionally circumvent the stricter regulations imposed on collective investments, specifically to hide their financial accounts and the sub-funds which invariably include unsigned loan notes and high-risk hare-brained projects
DUBAI:
- Permitting brokers to use unqualified advisers to scam investors into high-risk, high-charges products
SINGAPORE:
- Allowing a bank – United Overseas Bank – to steal £2.5 million from a British client and taking no action
NEW ZEALAND:
- Failing to act against a pension liberation scam – Evergreen Retirement Benefits Scheme – run by Simon Swallow who was working with Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions and operating Marazion “loans”
GUERNSEY:
- Ignoring Concept Trustees (Guernsey) who offered retail investors the EEA Life Settlements UCIS and then accepted investment instructions from unlicensed, un-insured Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions
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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.
September 3, 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
HOLBORN ASSETS AND THE CHAMPAGNE KILLER

Holborn Assets mercilessly leaves its victims facing financial ruin

HOLBORN ASSETS “CHAMPAGNE KILLER” APPROACH TO FINANCIAL ADVICE IS DESTROYING VICTIMS’ LIFE SAVINGS

Holborn Assets “Champagne Killer” approach to financial advice is ruining victims. Holborn Assets is routinely destroying people’s pensions and life savings, and refusing to compensate the distraught victims facing poverty in retirement. The so-called “advisers” at Holborn Assets give investment advice (often unregulated) which entails investing victims’ funds in whatever toxic, illiquid, high-risk rubbish pays the highest commissions, and then leave the devastated investors hung out to dry. Neither the firm nor the “advisers” responsible for this outrage show any compassion or contrition. This is no different to the callous actions of a common drunk, hit-and-run driver.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, Holborn Assets also employs Darin Brownlee-Jones: the “Champagne Killer“. A drunk hit-and-run driver who killed an innocent man then walked away to drink champagne. He didn’t stop to try to help the victim he left dying in the road – or show any remorse for the horrible, painful death the poor man suffered.

Holborn Assets seems to make a habit out of employing the unemployable. First, there was Paul Reynolds who was banned by the FCA and fined nearly £300,000 for giving unsuitable and misleading financial advice. The FCA declared Reynolds was not a fit and proper person to give financial advice. But Uncle Bob Parker of Holborn Assets Dubai welcomed him with open arms – and Reynolds has since changed his name to try to conceal his unsavoury past. But I bumped into Reynolds when I was at the Holborn Assets office at the end of 2015 – so I know it is him despite trying to change his appearance as well as his name.

And now there is Darin Brownlee-Jones who is commissioning pension reports for more poor unfortunate victims. These people are transferring their defined benefit pension schemes to offshore QROPS in dodgy jurisdictions where negligent trustees peddle their toxic wares. In one case, Brownlee-Jones has employed a Spanish firm to sign off a DB transfer for a resident of France. The advice is covered (allegedly) by the Spanish insurance regulator (which doesn’t cover pension or investment advice) and not the French regulator or the FCA.

So why would Brownlee-Jones in Dubai get a Spanish firm to provide unregulated advice to an investor in France? In 2003, the FSA had refused an application from Brownlee Jones to perform investment and pension-transfer functions. The reason was that the FSA did not consider him to be a fit and proper person as he had indecently assaulted a woman, caused criminal damage and death by dangerous driving.

I think any reasonable person would agree that Brownlee-Jones was the last person you would want handling investment and pension advice. But Bob Parker at Holborn Assets clearly likes having misfits, FCA rejects, sex offenders, drunks and killers on his team.

Brownlee-Jones: after a belly full of beer in 1999, got into his car and hit a motor cyclist head on. He left the poor man dying in a pool of blood and went to celebrate at his favourite wine bar. He ordered two bottles of Dom Perignon champagne at £95 apiece. When he was arrested, he was quaffing his favourite bubbly – although he probably wasn’t smiling quite so broadly when he was jailed for four years.

The distraught father of the victim said that Brownlee-Jones had treated his dying son “like an animal“. And yet Bob Parker employs this callous killer and encourages him to provide unregulated pension advice to victims in France and Spain.

This routine callousness is shown by Bob Parker and many other Holborn Assets salesmen. Where their victims’ pensions and investments have been decimated by high-risk structured notes and unregulated, toxic, illiquid funds -such as Premier New Earth Recycling – Holborn Assets just shrugs and leaves the victims to face poverty in retirement. Once they have earned their fat commissions from the victims’ pension funds, Holborn Assets doesn’t want to know any more. Bob Parker and his merry men simply walk away without a backward glance.

Holborn Assets has been aggressively targeting new victims with a cold-calling campaign using a well-known boiler-room scam operation in Manchester. The cold calls to Spanish residents are followed up by salesmen such as Jason Ryder who claims that Holborn Assets have offices in Barcelona and Marbella. Of course, Holborn Assets is not licensed to operate in Spain – and once conned into letting these cowboys plunder their pensions for fat commissions and fees, there is no regulator to complain to.

Apart from Bob Parker, Paul Reynolds, Darin Brownlee-Jones and a bunch of other “snake oil salesmen”, there are some people at Holborn Assets who do have some ethics and a conscience. Surely, if these people had any sense they would distance themselves from this cesspit of financial disservice? Why stay with a firm with such an appalling track record?

Below is a list of all the people who work for Holborn Assets (excluding admin and finance). I wonder if a single one of them will feel some sense of disgrace at being a part of this “champagne killer” approach to financial services?

Robert Parker, Phillip Parker, Simon Parker, Gerard Frew, Gerard J Leahy, Adrian Bliss, Alexander Herbert, Andrew Jarvis, Daniel Quinn, Joanne Phillips, Michele Carby, Nicholas Thompson, Rubina Khan, Ryan Quinn, Vince Truong, Paul Barrass, Kapil Mathur, Mark Powsney, Payal Trehan, Richard Hanna, Samuel Ebbs, Simon Burrass, Steve Lawton, Steven Downey, Usman Ahmed, Conor O’Shaughnessy, Anthony Murray, Colin Estlick, Creigh Classey, Jamie Arthur, Gavin Webster, Guillermo Martorell, Adrian Luscombe-Whyte, Tim Sant, Stuart Bichard, Richard Colburn, Kevin Curtis, Alison Sant, Ian Leigh, Darin Brownlee-Jones, Colin Kneale, Bryan Wawman, Vivian Van Eeden.

If not a single one of the above group of people is prepared to put ethics and principles at the top of their agenda and ensure their professional reputations are not sullied by the “champagne killer” approach to financial advice, then there truly is no hope for Holborn Assets.

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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.

July 17, 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
THE ROT OF GIBRALTAR’S “GOLDEN SA-TURD-AY AWARD”

What a wag that Michael Howard was on Saturday. But his timing is brilliant as we do have one little “mess” which needs sorting out urgently, and a bit of a hole – about the size of Howard’s mouth – in regulation and financial crime prevention in Gibraltar: the STM Fidecs/Trafalgar Multi-Asset Fund pension scam.

Known for many years as a haven for crooks, tax evaders, swindlers, fraudsters, money launderers, drug traffickers and assorted rascally turds, Gibraltar is also home to STM Fidecs. Allegedly a pension “trustee” firm. So, this blog is addressed directly and unashamedly to STM Fidec’s Alan Kentish and David Easton.

“Alan and David, the word “trustee” has got the “trust” bit in it for a reason. Members are supposed to be able to trust a pension trustee to ensure that investors are not advised by a two-bit, unregulated, serial scammer. And further, that they are not advised by a two-bit, unregulated, serial scammer who is also the investment manager of the very UCIS scam he is promoting to UK residents who should never have been put in a QROPS in the first place. And further still, that the investors’ pensions are not 100% invested in that high-risk, toxic rubbish which is illegal to be promoted to UK residents.

Talking of words, I was curious as to what “Fidecs” actually means and when I Googled it, I got “fighting infectious diseases in emerging countries”. Well, that’s about right if you ask me. And who asked me? Victims of the Trafalgar Multi-Asset Fraud (£21 million suspended and arguably worthless). And a dying elderly man to whom you caused immense anguish by refusing to release a portion of his pension so he could have life-saving cancer treatment – and whom you gagged when eventually you did relent (although he had told me all about before you gagged him).

And talking of gagging, what about the woman you gagged because she worked for you and objected strongly to the amount of business you were signing off which was non-compliant and would put investors at risk? She happened to know what she was talking about because she had been a victim of the scammers at Holborn Assets in Dubai who came close to losing her all of her pension – so she knew her stuff. So you gagged her too – but not before she had told me every detail – as she is a member of the Pension Life Group Action.

So, Al and Dave, I am sure it goes without saying that you won’t be gagging me, and a detailed report is being prepared for Messrs. Coles, Crossman, Tricker, Ashton, Barrass and Garner. It would be nice if you came forward, admitted your negligence like men and put your professional indemnity insurers on notice without squirming and slithering around.

Let’s see if you are men; whether you can put the “trust” back in “trustee”, take the turd out of Saturday and kick the rot out of Gibraltar. Then Lord Howard can take his foot out of his mouth and Gib might have a chance of rescuing its tarnished imagine as the harbourer of financial crime.”

April 2, 2017

HOLBORN ASSETS (OR LIABILITIES?)

This is the claim made by Holborn Assets’ CEO Bob Parker: “We are professional advisers adhering to the company’s mission which is to ensure that you get quality, independent advice and service, that your money is put in the right place at the right time and that you are treated with integrity and respect. Moreover, our unparalleled relationships with the best product providers help to assure that we make available superior investment and protection solutions for the increasingly sophisticated expatriate community we serve.”

Let’s examine this claim in the context of Holborn victim Glynis Broadfoot. She was given rotten advice and service in 2011 which resulted in her losing a significant portion of her final salary pension. Thanks to Holborn Assets, her gold-plated local authority pension was put into high-risk, professional-investor only investments and she then suffered years of extreme worry and distress while she watched the value of her pension plummet.

Far from treating Mrs. Broadfoot with “integrity and respect”, Holborn refused to help her and simply kept taking their fees from her ever shrinking pension pot.

With Holborn recently ordered by the FCA to immediately stop DB pension transfers:

http://www.international-adviser.com/news/1034897/holborn-assets-immediately-cease-pension-transfers

it is now time to put Holborn clearly in the spotlight, make the complaint against them public and correct their claims of “superior investment solutions”. For several years now I have offered Holborn CEO Bob Parker the opportunity to choose between emerging from this debacle the hero or the villain – but Parker has refused to engage. However, Holborn’s Caleb Burgess reached out to me on LinkedIn yesterday so I am sure he will be eager to engage with me to help resolve this matter.

Formal Complaint against Holborn Asset Management, Dubai in respect of victim Glynis Broadfoot

Desired Outcomes:

Full reinstatement of original pension transfer value
Full refund of all fees paid to all parties
Interest at the same rate as would have been earned had the fund remained in the original scheme
Compensation for the anxiety, stress and pressure which have put at risk Mrs. Broadfoot’s health and life for the past five years

Holborn’s Failures:

False and misleading representations about the investments
Mis-sale of professional-investor-only financial products which were unsuitable for a low-risk investor
Undisclosed fees and commissions which were deliberately concealed
Absence of integrity and professionalism
Firm not licensed to provide pension and investment advice in Spain
Negligent and uncooperative in dealing with the complaint for several years

Summary:

Mrs. Broadfoot had been a member of the Local Government Employee Superannuation Scheme for 29 years
Holborn advised the transfer of pension to a QROPS with Gower Pensions, Guernsey, using estimated figures to make the transaction appear more attractive
Holborn did not advise Mrs. Broadfoot of the benefits of remaining in her final salary secured pension
Holborn informed her that the transfer value would be £195,105 – rather than the actual value of £146,376 which gave her false and misleading information about the transfer
Holborn subsequently admitted that the investment choices were poor and claimed that “if there was something (they) could do to turn the clock back (they) would”
Holborn did not advise Mrs. Broadfoot of her initial losses and when she complained they were dismissive and assured her they were “only paper losses”
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”
Holborn did not disclose their fees of £11K which they were continuing to charge even while her pension was losing money at an alarming rate
Fees of £5,594 paid to Gower were not disclosed by Holborn or agreed by Mrs. Broadfoot
Due to negligent, inappropriate investments made by Holborn, she has lost a substantial proportion of her pension which may result in having to sell the family home and the possibility of her family having to live on government benefits
A Suitability report was undertaken by Holborn Assets which clearly stated: “Annual review to ensure that the underlying investment strategy is still within the member’s attitude to risk”
Annual return was promised at 8% and that Mrs. Broadfoot would never lose any money

Below is an e-mail sent from Robert Parker CEO at Holborn to staff advising them of what to state in an e-mail to Mrs. Broadfoot regarding documentation she had requested:

From:	Bob Parker (robert@holbornassets.com)
Sent:	26 February 2015 07:59:02
To:	Caleb Burgess (caleb.burgess@holbornassets.com)
Cc:	Simon Parker (simon@holbornassets.com); Philip Parker (philip@holbornassets.com); John Broadfoot (broadfootjf@hotmail.co.uk)

If you have already sent transaction detail change the wording on the holding letter and resend. Something like “the attached was sent to you on xx date we are searching our archives for any further information.”

But no transaction details were ever sent to her by Holborn.

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. So contrary to the firm’s grandiose claims on their website, this victim’s money was put in the wrong place at the wrong time and she was treated with complete callousness and contempt.

March 28, 2017

TRUSSED BY A QROPS TRUSTEE?

Philip Hammond’s surprise 25% tax on QROPS transfers will leave many advisers and trustees floundering as the industry tries to make some sense of the long-term consequences for expatriates and their pensions. The uncertainty of the “five-year” change of circumstances rule will leave a huge question mark over the offshore landscape.

But while the industry ponders the fall-out of the Hammond organ, the “elephant in the room” is far more sinister: offshore trustees who have accepted business from scammers. This has been a serious problem since at least 2011, and the fall-out is £ millions of pounds’ worth of pension losses and sometimes tax liabilities for the thousands of victims.

Regulators, ombudsmen and financial crime units are now being sent detailed reports on thousands of cases where trustees have either been in league with the scammers or simply turned a blind eye to obvious scams – putting profit before due diligence (either accidentally or deliberately). The distinction between the varying shades of grey is sometimes somewhat subtle, but it always has the same outcome: pension losses for the victims.

The jurisdictions affected include New Zealand, Guernsey, Malta and Gibraltar principally (although not exclusively). Whatever problems there may be with Hammond’s 25% blow job, the culpability of rogue trustees will hopefully now become a hot issue – and victims will stand a better chance of obtaining redress for their losses.

In Guernsey, from 2010 onwards, Concept Trustees was routinely accepting business from Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions. Although Concept was warning some victims that Ward had provided no evidence of regulation or professional indemnity insurance – and refusing to communicate with him – this did not stop Concept from accepting transfers and dealing instructions from Ward. Concept should never have been offering members investments in toxic, high-risk funds such as EEA Life Settlements and Connaught Property Loans. In fact, the FSA had issued warnings about EEA in February 2010, but Concept continued to offer this to low-risk, cautious investors in the full knowledge that it was an entirely unsuitable investment for a pension fund.

At around the same time, Gower Pensions in Guernsey was accepting business from Dubai-based Holborn Assets. The firm was not licensed for pension or investment advice in Spain – or for any activity beyond wearing an expensive suit, regurgitating convincing, high-pressure sales patter and having an impressive leather-bound portfolio. Despite several years of communication with both Gower and Holborn, a derisory amount of compensation for heavy pension fund losses has been offered (and refused).

In 2012, New Zealand’s Evergreen Retirement Trust launched a pension liberation scam with Stephen Ward of Premier Pension Solutions. Three hundred victims – mostly Spanish residents – transferred their UK pensions (aggregate value of around £10 million) to Evergreen and obtained 50% “loans” from Ward’s Cyprus-based Marazion loan company. The loans were financed by the assets of the scheme and the victims were tied in to both the loan and the pension scheme for identical five-year periods. This particular chicken is coming home to roost later in 2017 and it will be interesting to see how the various parties in New Zealand and Spain who were behind this scam will try to escape liability and culpability.

In the last couple of years, pension scammers have moved away from the bogus occupational scheme approach and into QROPS – which they find even easier to use, abuse and lose. In 2015, Malta-based Integrated Capabilities started accepting transfers into their Optimus scheme from unlicensed scammers in the Czech Republic. These same scammers were also the distributors/promoters of one of the toxic, high-risk UCIS funds being used as the assets of the scheme. Despite Optimus having Lombard Bank (purportedly) as Investment Manager, there seems to have been an absolute lack of due diligence or transparency. In fact, had Integrated Capabilities bothered to look a little closer at the scammers they were getting into bed with, they would have seen that one party had been a cold-calling operation behind the Capita Oak £10 million scam.

But Gibraltar’s STM Fidecs probably takes the biscuit – or even the whole shopping trolley. In 2014, STM started accepting transfers from UK residents by an unlicensed firm which had also been involved in Capita Oak and other scams. This firm was not only the adviser but also the investment manager to the toxic UCIS fund that the victims’ pensions were invested in. This fund – the Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund – was invested entirely in German property development loans (which pay handsome introduction commissions to the introducers) and is now suspended and being wound up.

While it is clear that Hammond hasn’t a clue about pensions in general or QROPS in particular, his 25% surprise may have had unintended consequences in that it will shine the spotlight firmly on negligent offshore trustees who facilitate financial crime – either through omission or commission. Whether the regulators, ombudsmen and financial crime units in New Zealand, Guernsey, Malta and Gibralta will order these trustees to compensate their victims remains to be seen. The survival of these offshore jurisdictions as “safe havens” for financial business depends on them cleaning up their act and outlawing unlicensed operators profiting from trustees’ lax approach to due diligence.

The future of the QROPS may be uncertain, but the future of pension trustees such as Concept, Integrated Capabilities and STM Fidecs should be very clear: no dealings with scammers; no toxic UCIS investments; no failing to compensate victims who suffer pension losses through negligence and/or fraud.

March 13, 2017
Life at Pension Life Fighting Scams – Behind the Scenes

My name is Nikki Mitchell. Lets peep behind the scenes at life at Pension Life, fighting pension scams. I’m the newest member of the team. I started in June 2016 – there was a lot to learn in six months. I am PA to Angie, but most importantly I handle a wide variety of tasks.

Angie has been defending people scammed out of their pensions since 2013. My colleague Sue Halfyard’s role is member administration. She completes all the essential documentation that we, HMRC, Dalriada Trustees and the solicitors need. Sue also liaises with HMRC on the unauthorised payment tax appeals and helps Angie prepare for the Tax Tribunals. Elizabeth is our website and blog-writer and is currently on maternity leave.

Our website is not only a place to inform people of the work we do, and how we can help people who have fallen foul of pension scammers, but it also serves as a platform to warn others about scammers, so that hopefully we can stop them losing their life savings.

We are currently dealing with over 30 different schemes:

Ark; Axiom UP; Barret and Dalton; Baxendale Walker; Capita Oak; Confiance; Continental Wealth Management; EEA/Concept Trustees; Elysian Fuels/SIPPS; Evergreen QROPS; Headforte; Henley; Holborn Assets/Gower Pensions; Holbrook Capital; KJK Investments; Ledger and Simmons; London Quantum; Malvern; Mendip; RL360; Hansard/Trafalgar; LM; Optimus Retirement Benefit Scheme No 1; Peak Performance; Pennines; Salmon Enterprises; Store First SIPPS; Trafalgar Multi Asset Fund/STM Fidecs; Tudor Capital Management; Westminster; Windsor Pensions.

Sadly, most months we hear about new ones.

Day to day work in the office consists of managing Angie’s crowded diary, keeping the accounts, liaising with members to keep them abreast of new developments, preparing scheme and member files for the legal teams, responding to the demands of HMRC and various trustees. I also work on campaigns to raise awareness of pension scams, or to campaign for changes in the law to protect pension investments.

My first few weeks passed in a whirl of new jargon and abbreviations – UTR, Q10, MPVA EIS, PCLS, etc. Some days I spend the day designing and completing databases with members’ information for the solicitors. Other days I’m number crunching the transfer and loan amounts for an individual scheme. Some days we all have to change direction as there has been an urgent development. A recent example of this was the Standstill Agreements sent out by Dalriada – the trustees of the Ark Pension schemes. Our first member received an agreement in August 2016. We have warned all the members that they will be receiving one, and worked with our solicitors to redraft the agreement to protect the members’ interests.

Being a small, busy team in a hectic office, there is never a dull moment. Aside from the daily nitty-gritty of the work, there are also the heart-breaking accounts of the members who have been scammed out of their pensions. Consequently, I have felt disbelief at the cruel contempt of the scammers. Reading members’ stories of how they were conned into investing their entire pensions or life savings into dodgy, illiquid schemes is utterly heart-breaking. Speaking to people who have lost everything – their homes, their marriages and their health – through the actions of these arrogant, greedy con-men fills me with horror.

The greatest shock to me since joining Pension Life has been how the scammers have continually got away with fraud and theft for years. Also, how ceding providers routinely transfer pensions with hardly even the most rudimentary checks. It has amazed me how so many different types of pension scams are allowed to be set up time and time again, with no thorough controls by HMRC or the regulators. Moreover, I can’t understand why it takes so long for the scams to be shut down – long after they have been identified.

We may be a small team here at Pension Life, but with the government’s recent realisation that cold calling needs to be outlawed and the consultation on pension scams:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/pension-scams

we are hopeful that there may finally be light at the end of the tunnel for existing victims and jail for the scammers.

January 2, 2017
EYE ON DUBAI – GUARDIAN WEALTH MANAGEMENT AND HOLBORN ASSETS

GUARDIAN WEALTH MANAGEMENT AND HOLBORN ASSETS

A TALE OF TWO PUZZLES

Don’t you just hate it when you see a puzzling situation and can’t quite put your finger on what is behind it? There are two firms in Dubai that have got me thinking these past few days and I reckon the “jungle drums” in the Gulf have finally confirmed my best suspicions.

Guardian Wealth Management and Holborn Assets: two financial advisory firms HQ’d in Dubai with clear aspirations to become leading global players, but hampered by the skeletons rattling in their respective cupboards. Both firms have recently poached rivals’ staff in a bid to increase sales. But both have some pretty challenging hurdles to overcome before they can be taken seriously as contenders for the status of leading, award-winning, multi-national advisers.

My guess is that Guardian is likely to win the race, and leave Holborn struggling with its own self-inflicted albatrosses. And the guy who will lead Guardian to victory will be former deVere managing director, Mike Coady who jumped ship from deVere to Guardian a while back. But what was puzzling me was why would a man at the top of his profession, earning an eye-watering £250k salary and heading up the World’s biggest financial services company, take a less senior, non-executive position with a small firm which is heavily in debt to the Welsh government?

Coady’s gone from M.D. to “chief commercial officer” (and you can imagine the chorus of snorts that title caused throughout the industry) in the blink of an eye. A huge disaster for his c.v.? Or a golden opportunity perhaps? I think the answer to that question may be contained in a quote from Coady just a couple of months ago: “there is something that money can’t buy, and that is experience”.

At the beginning of 2016, Guardian poached three of deVere’s staff and paid them nearly a quarter of a million quid in (how should I phrase this?) “bonuses” – aka “golden handshakes”. But only a few months earlier, Guardian had been exposed as having received a GBP 850k grant from the Welsh government for a venture which promptly collapsed, and then failing to repay the grant. So, effectively British taxpayers were paying for the very “experience” which Coady was saying money couldn’t buy.

A “little birdie” has tipped me the nod that Coady is going to rescue Guardian’s tarnished image, by forgoing his GBP 250k annual salary for two years, and forcing the three deVere poachees – John Green, Joe Woodhouse and William Burrows – to repay the GBP 250k “bonuses” they received. And repay the Welsh government every penny they are owed.

Interestingly, Coady has been joined by another ship jumper: Darren Jones of Old Mutual International. I haven’t found out whether he is also going to forgo his previous GBP 250k salary to help speed up the repayment of the Welsh debt, but I am sure somebody in the “jungle” will tell me sooner or later.

Alas, Holborn Assets don’t have a Mike Coady to rescue them and give them a shot at the “crown”. Despite also recently poaching a rival firm’s staff (Finsbury Associates’ Nicholas Thompson and a team of five salesmen), Holborn can’t shake off the disgrace of their adviser Paul Reynolds, now allegedly going under a different name to hide his past. Fined GBP 300k and banned by the FCA for a series of misdemeanours (including falsification of documents- as confirmed by the FCA in the UK), Reynolds clearly knows where the body is hidden as he remains a prominent member of Bob Parker’s team.

Funnily enough, I ran into Reynolds in Dubai last year when I had gone to Holborn Assets’ office to see Parker – who heads up the firm. Parker had been dodging my calls and emails for months while I had been trying to get him to agree to compensate one of his victims whose pension had been decimated by Holborn’s pension investment “advice” in Spain – a jurisdiction where they had no licences. The poor client had spent years watching the high-risk investments Holborn had put her pension into shrink alarmingly, while she discovered the huge commissions and fees Holborn had earned out of her misfortune.

During my wait in reception at Holborn’s Al Shafar Tower office in Dubai, Mr. Reynolds had a visitor – and we had a very nice, interesting chat – not really relevant here or now (another time perhaps). Then Mr. Parker’s charming executive assistant Chimaa Meftah took me to a pleasant(ish) meeting room and listened patiently and sympathetically to my account of how Holborn had ruined a victim’s pension and health. Chimaa promised that Mr. Parker would contact me as soon as he got back from South Africa. However, I fear he may have been mistaken for a missionary as he doesn’t appear to have returned to any part of civilisation which has either telephones or internet.

So the puzzle is solved as the clever and canny Mr. Coady clearly knows something that Bob Parker doesn’t: you can’t move forward successfully until and unless you sort out the messes and disgraces of the past. Coady has a coherent plan for repaying the Welsh government and restoring faith in the integrity of Guardian’s advisers – after all, who would want to listen to any advice, let alone financial advice, from people who have taken bribes paid for by British taxpayers.

Mike Coady made a resounding prediction for deVere back in October 2016: “There’s a clear and definite trend that independent bodies, agencies and organisations are increasingly recognising our (deVere’s) high quality work, advice and service – and I am confident this will gain further momentum in 2017.”

So here’s my own prediction for 2017: in the wake of the recent resignation of Guardian’s CEO David Howell, Coady will, before long, get a promotion and a significant stake in the business. Money may not be able to buy experience – but it sure helps clean the skeletons out of the cupboards. Perhaps, as Mr. Coady won’t be earning any salary for the next two years, he might like to offer his consultancy services and priceless experience to Holborn Assets in his spare time?

December 29, 2016

Tag: Holborn Assets

Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

So what the hell are structured notes? And why should investors say NO to them?

Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

So if you hear the term ‘structured note’ in connection with your retirement fund, just say ‘NO’. The only people profiting from this type of investment are the advisers.

Follow Pension Life on twitter to keep up with all things pension related, good and bad.

STM Fidecs – Trafalgar Multi Asset Scam

Annette Perales, Head of Financial Crime

Zoe Westwood, Head of Enforcement, Legal, Enforcement and Policy

“The backbone of STM is its staff. We have people who have worked for us for 20 years who are the heart and soul of our business. If we didn’t have outstanding staff, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.”

Backbone? Heart? Soul? Absolute rubbish!

Follow Pension Life on twitter to keep up with all things pension related, good and bad.

REGULATORS AND SCAMMERS

Regulation, regulation, regulation,
Three scammers went to the station,
One got crushed, one got killed,
And one got a huge operation.

WHAT DO REGULATORS NEED TO DO AS A MATTER OF URGENCY?

Follow Pension Life on twitter to keep up with all things pension related, good and bad.

HOLBORN ASSETS – HEALTH WARNING

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

HOLBORN ASSETS KUALA LUMPUR:

HOLBORN ASSETS AND THE CHAMPAGNE KILLER

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

HYPOCRISY BY PARKER – HOLBORN ASSETS DUBAI – MONTFORT INTERNATIONAL

HOLBORN ASSETS’ NEW CALCULATOR

THE ROT OF GIBRALTAR’S “GOLDEN SA-TURD-AY AWARD”

HOLBORN ASSETS (OR LIABILITIES?)

TRUSSED BY A QROPS TRUSTEE?

Life at Pension Life Fighting Scams – Behind the Scenes

EYE ON DUBAI – GUARDIAN WEALTH MANAGEMENT AND HOLBORN ASSETS

Tag: Holborn Assets

Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

So what the hell are structured notes? And why should investors say NO to them?

Say NO to structured notes for pensions!

So if you hear the term ‘structured note’ in connection with your retirement fund, just say ‘NO’. The only people profiting from this type of investment are the advisers.

Annette Perales, Head of Financial Crime

Zoe Westwood, Head of Enforcement, Legal, Enforcement and Policy

“The backbone of STM is its staff. We have people who have worked for us for 20 years who are the heart and soul of our business. If we didn’t have outstanding staff, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.”

Backbone? Heart? Soul? Absolute rubbish!

Regulation, regulation, regulation,Three scammers went to the station,One got crushed, one got killed, And one got a huge operation.

WHAT DO REGULATORS NEED TO DO AS A MATTER OF URGENCY?

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

HOLBORN ASSETS KUALA LUMPUR:

Regulation, regulation, regulation,
Three scammers went to the station,
One got crushed, one got killed,
And one got a huge operation.