Active Wealth (UK) Limited a firm of Independent Financial Advisers has been suspended by the Financial Conduct Authority from accepting any new pension business, effective from 24 November 2017.
It has come to light that this firm was introduced to a cohort of steel workers via an unregulated company called Celtic Wealth Management & Financial Planning and it advised said clients indiscriminately; to transfer their pensions out of the scheme and in to a Momentum self-invested personal pension (SIPP) to facilitate investment in a German property bond Gallium (amongst others).
There were various problems with this approach:
- Transferring out of the existing scheme sacrificed all benefits and security associated with that scheme.
- Gallium was only a suitable investment for sophisticated and experienced investors.
- Gallium, unbeknown to the steel workers, charges a 5% exit penalty to withdraw invested money from the fund.
- SIPP’s were not necessarily suitable pension vehicles for the steel workers.
Active Wealth (UK) Limited was declared in ‘default’ by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) on 15 May 2018. As such, the FSCS is now accepting claims against Active Wealth (UK) Limited and satisfying successful claims up to their statutory limit of £50,000.
