With effect from 6 April 2023, WealthTek Limited Liability Partnership, trading as Vertem Asset Management and Malloch Melville was placed into Special Administration with old friends Shane Crooks, Mark Shaw and Emma Sayers, IPs from BDO, acting as Special Administrators. One of their first jobs was to discover a potential £81.4 million shortfall in client money and to swiftly move on director John Dance, who has seen assets worth £40 million frozen amid a fraud and money laundering probe and had the misfortune of being arrested by Northumbria Police in April.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says WealthTek, which had about 1,470 clients also traded as Vertem Asset Management and Malloch Melville, did not have permission to hold client money or custody assets.
The BDO Special Administrators are now responsible for the affairs of the LLP and in accordance with the statutory objectives contained within the Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations 2011 they must:
(i) ensure the return of client assets as soon as reasonably practicable;
(ii) ensure timely engagement with market infrastructure bodies and authorities; and
(iii) either rescue the firm as a going concern or wind it up in the best interest of the creditors.
Job on Shane, Mark and Emma.
The FCA said it had obtained a worldwide order to freeze Mr Dance's assets in case some may potentially be used for distribution or confiscation following the conclusion of any civil or criminal proceedings it brings. Mr Dance was joint-owner of the successful racing horse Bravemansgame, which last month the British Horseracing Authority withdrew from racing at Aintree.
The Special Administrators say they have secured the firm's Cobalt Business Park premises, safeguarded its books and records, and made a series of redundancies - including at least 17 people in early April.
Separately, and we are sure quite coincidentally, one of Newcastle's largest nightclub businesses, founded by Mr Dance and two other partners, has closed.
More on this as the news breaks.
