Did you take pension or investment advice from Fergus Burns who passed away in April 2020?
If you did there is a substantial chance you may have fallen victim to his woeful and in many cases deliberately mis-leading financial advice. Based in Balmullo Fife, he also traded as the Financial Planning Partnership and more recently was a member of the True Potential network up until June 2017.
Sadly, from what we have seen, Mr Burns advice invariably centred around his own self-interest rather than that of his clients. This included signing off pension transfers into SIPP providers such as the Lifetime SIPP, Rowanmoor and Carey Pensions. From there frequently recommended investments included overseas hotel projects such as The Resort Group, based in Cape Verde, Freedom Bay in St Lucia and Harlequin Hotels at Buccament Bay in the Caribbean. As well as offering these highly risky and unregulated investments to his own customers, Mr Burns also worked closely with a company called Sipp-Able, an unregulated firm who specialised in the sale of high-risk unregulated assets and who’s director John Steven Maltwood was formerly the “Overseas Network Manager” at MAP Global Property Investments Ltd. A company famed for selling a whole host of unregulated assets such as Store Pods and Airport Parking schemes.
Since his passing we have discovered a whole plethora of fraudulent schemes that he recommended to his clients such as land investment scheme in Brazil via Kapital International Ltd. A company incidentally formed in March 2016 and dissolved in December 2020 that according to Companies House never traded. Then there was the significant number of victims he advised to invest in FAST pensions who have now lost everything. It’s known that the commissions on these schemes were huge.
Despite having no regulatory pension permissions after 1 June 2017, that didn’t stop Mr Burns illegally continuing to provide pension transfer advice through a number of other firms. Grosvenor Butterworth (Financial Services) Limited, based in Cardiff, being one. The FCA withdrew all the firms permissions in November 2017. As well as accepting business from unregulated introducers, they had a history of recommending their clients to invest in high-risk Beaufort Securities Investment portfolios. Grosvenor Butterworth began liquidation proceedings in January 2018 and were declared as being in FSCS default on 11 May 2018.
Mr Burns also had links to the failed London Capital & Finance gold investments, as well as acting as an unregulated introducer to SG Capital Management and the Plutus Partnership, based in Blackpool. We are aware that a number of unfortunate victims from Dundee saw their pensions transferred firstly into a James Hay SIPP and invested in the TJM Bespoke Portfolio and then the Tatton Managed Balanced Portfolio. From there Mr Burns, acting in the background, encouraged them to move their SIPP provider to Hartley Pension Trustees and then their advisers to Hamilton Rose who in turn recommended a number of high-risk investments which have now failed, such as common stock in Early Equity PLC, NQ Minerals PLC and Omi Egis PLC, along with corporate bonds with Audacia Capital Ireland PLC, Audley Funding PLC and Kaeva PLC.
If you took pension or investment advice either directly or indirectly through Fergus Burns, Beat the Banks are more than happy to discuss any concerns that you have. We are also happy to chat over any concerns you may have regarding advice given in relation to mortgages, life insurance or wills and trusts. To find out more give our team a call on – 01382 200474 or complete our enquiry form on this page and we’ll be in touch. You are also more than welcome to pop into our office for a chat at – First Floor, 87 Commercial Street, Dundee, DD1 2AB.
