The SFA has fined Capel Cure Sharp (CCS), now trading as Gerrard, £200,000 for not adequately progressing and managing its review of pensions sold.
The Securities and Futures Authority (SFA) has fined Capel Cure Sharp (CCS), now trading as Gerrard, £200,000 for not adequately progressing and managing its review of pensions sold.
Gerrard, owned by FTSE-100 financial services group Old Mutual since March 2000, is one of the largest private client investment management companies in the UK, with around £17bn of funds under management.
To correctly conduct its pensions review, CCS was required to establish how many investors had either opted out, not joined or transferred benefits from an occupational pension to a private pension, and then compensate where necessary.
The SFA, a subsidiary of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), said CCS had not established the correct number of investors potentially affected and therefore did not review all eligible cases. This means some eligible investors would not have been compensated.
The SFA said that following the appointment of external pensions specialists in May 2000, the estimated amount of compensation due to investors rose from an initial £150,000 to £3m.
