Final salary pension adviser BlackStar Wealth Management collapses

Blackstar Wealth Management entered administration in August 2019

A financial advice firm that is known to have transferred people’s final salary pensions into SIPPs filled with high-risk and unregulated investments has entered into administration.

Based in the West Midlands, Blackstar Wealth Management Ltd which operated as a registered business from 2008 appointed Andrew Fender of Sanderlings LLP as administration – a move that was announced in The Gazette on August 19, 2019.

Financial advisers have to take their client’s suitability into account when recommending a move from a final salary pension scheme, as moves like these often mean giving up a guaranteed income in retirement.

In some cases, financial advisers negligently skim over the details, meaning that people pay advisers good money (often thousands of pounds) from their pension to make a move that could cost them their retirement.

High-risk investments

BlackStar, as well as other financial advisers, is known to have told some people to make high-risk investments, despite suitability issues surrounding these often unregulated schemes.

In one complaint to the Ombudsman which resulted in BlackStar being told to pay compensation, one client transferred their occupational pension to a SIPP and made high-risk investments in Dolphin Capital – an unregulated German Property scheme, Lateral Eco Parks, and the increasingly infamous Beaufort Securities.

Not only did some of the investments get into difficulty and potentially lose the client money, but they were always high-risk and unsuitable for the client.

Can you make a claim?

Thousands have been making claims for mis-sold final salary pension transfers after realising that they received negligent financial advice from a regulated firm that should have known better.

Some people’s pension woes have then been compounded by high-risk investments though mis-sold SIPPs like the ones mentioned above, losing them money from a transfer that they were told would get them more money in retirement.

BlackStar Wealth Management is now in administration after facing 99 complaints about its pension advice, with more potentially on the way.

Find out if you can make a mis-sold pension claim by having a FREE, no-obligation chat with one of our experienced case handlers.