Jackson Francis Ltd was an unregulated marketing company, now in liquidation, that was responsible for introducing a large number of people to Storefirst – itself an FCA-unregulated and high-risk investment which many people went onto invest with via a SIPP.
The problem was, is that many people who invested in store pods have since been found to be unsuitable for such a high-risk investment, with many struggling to recover from shortfalls on the projected returns.
Jackson Francis Ltd is no-longer operating, having gone into insolvency proceedings back in September 2014, but not without leaving quite a stink in the media…
According to the Professional Adviser & The BBC in December 2015, Liverpool-based Jackson Francis Ltd was paid indirectly by Store First to cold-call people about their pensions, leading to over 1000 people investing in Store Pods, many through Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs).
Salesmen who had previously worked for Jackson Francis told the BBC that management instructed them to lie to pension holders in order to get the business, and admitted to forging documents, seeing other members of staff conducting similar practices.
Over a 2 year period, the intermediary firm that was paid by Store First director Toby Whittaker to the tune of £33Million, which funded Jackson Francis. Jackson Francis also persuaded people to invest in Capita Oak and the Henley Retirement Benefit schemes, now all connected to an investigation being conducted by the Serious Fraud Office, and related to store-pod investments.
In November 2016, the firm even made even more mainstream news, with The Mirror running the headline “Ban for the director whose companies made £4million mis-selling investments“. The article described how Sycamore Crown (which shared a director with Jackson Francis), had a claim of offering “unbiased advice” to the pension savers, but despite this…
“The only product promoted appears to be an unregulated investment in storage units”
Speak with a specialistThe groundwork for the Store First Limited storage pod investment began in 2010 as a registered company, part of Group First.
A year later, Jackson Francis Limited was created, based out of Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands
Until sometime in 2013, Jackson Francis persuaded hundreds of people to invest their pensions into Store First. Store First themselves reportedly paid £33m in commission to Transeuro Worldwide Holdings Ltd, which funded Jackson Francis.
Jackson Francis goes into a Creditor’s Voluntary Liquidation.
Think you’ve been mis-sold your investment? Click below to take the first step to making a claim
MAKE A CLAIMThere are strict rules about high-risk investments, enforced by the FCA.
If you invested in Store First but don’t fit any of the descriptions listed below, you may have been mis-sold, and could potentially claim.