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Dodgy Investments\IFA - Advice Appreciated

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ReformedCharacter
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Dodgy Investments\IFA - Advice Appreciated

#192653

Postby ReformedCharacter » January 11th, 2019, 9:55 am

I hope this is the right board...

A longstanding friend contacted me last evening in a state of some distress in search of advice and a friendly ear. I listened and said I would do what I could do to help him.

It seems that my friend has made a number of high risk, dodgy investments on the advice of an IFA in Bristol. These investments include:

The Princess Trust which grows Paulonia trees in Panama.
Park First which invests in airport parking schemes
Dolphin Trust GmbH which develops property in Germany

Some of these investments, the first at least, has apparently been placed in a SIPP run by Carey Pensions, which seems to have issues of its own-

https://www.ftadviser.com/personal-pens ... -by-rival/

It all smells very bad to me. My first question is whether or not IFAs are allowed to promote investments like this?

I have looked at the FCA website but remain unsure if the IFA has acted unlawfully or against FCA regulation.

It seems that the first two investments listed above are essentially worthless and the jury is out on the third.

Apparently my friend's sister also invested in the Paulonia scheme, not through an IFA but more directly with one of the scheme's owners. When it became clear to her recently that the trees (which do exist) are worthless she contacted the person who sold her the investment who refunded her money in full.

My friend also wrote to the same individual but the person concerned referred him back to his IFA.

Can anyone help with advice or suggestions, please?

Thank you.

RC

PinkDalek
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Park First Limited

#192665

Postby PinkDalek » January 11th, 2019, 10:33 am

On Park First Limited, follow the link here viewtopic.php?p=101819#p101819 to the latest on the FCA related page (Last updated: 25/06/2018).

Alaric
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Re: Dodgy Investments\IFA - Advice Appreciated

#192675

Postby Alaric » January 11th, 2019, 11:02 am

ReformedCharacter wrote: My first question is whether or not IFAs are allowed to promote investments like this?

I have looked at the FCA website but remain unsure if the IFA has acted unlawfully or against FCA regulation.


It's something of a grey area. One point to check is whether the IFA was acting as such, giving advice, or just acting as an introducer, or even whether they are an IFA at all in the registered with the FCA sense. You can look up IFAs on the FCA site and that should also tell you what they are permitted to advise on.

Sometimes a package decision such as "transfer your pension to a rain forest" falls into two regulatory boxes. The IFA advises on the bit involving a transfer of a pension to a SIPP, whilst the investor is supposedly responsible for the decision to invest the SIPP in a rain forest.


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