Clients of collapsed advice firm to have claims examined

Claims from the collapsed advice firm Tenet will be investigated by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) at the start of next year.

Earlier this year, the firm’s administrators said 9,645 clients were “considered as being at higher risk of having received unsuitable advice”.

Tenet, which billed itself as the largest independent financial adviser network in the UK, collapsed into administration in July, leading to almost 100 job losses.

The £121m revenue firm had suffered substantial losses in recent years and was forced to set aside £13.7m to pay out members of the British Steel Pension Scheme due to issues around advice for transfers of defined benefit pensions.

The advisor appealed to its shareholders, Aviva, Aegon and Abrdn, to provide it with further funding in March, but the request was denied, leading to its collapse.

Aviva held the largest stake in Tenet through its life and pensions business, at close to 50 per cent. Abrdn held around 26 per cent, while Aegon held a 23 per cent stake.

Rob Spence and Ed Boyle of Interpath Advisory were appointed as administrators to clean up the collapse, with their report identifying the firm had more than £10m in debt it could not pay.

Today, the FSCS said it had now collected enough information to progress with claims against the collapsed firm, stating it expects to open its online portal to claims in early next year.

“We plan to start the assessment process by first reviewing a small sample of claims that will help inform our longer-term approach,” it said.