“In my experience, DeVere was sometimes more focused on making sales than actually giving proper financial advice,” Pennell said in an interview.
After leaving DeVere in 2014, Pennell sued the company over an unpaid bonus and other money he says he was owed. He said he then received threatening anonymous phone calls, and a mobile-phone message with what appeared to be surveillance photographs of his wife and children. He reported the threats to South African police, who determined there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue the matter. A judge ruled in favor of Pennell in the pay dispute this month, but DeVere is appealing.
Pension Warning
An SEC investigation may not be the biggest threat to offshore advisers like DeVere: In March, the U.K. government imposed a 25 percent tax on some pensions transferred overseas. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority also posted a warning on its website in January about the risks of pension transfers, such as advisers who recommend high-risk investments or scams.
DeVere said in a May 13 press release that its strategic review will involve a corporate restructuring and should be completed by the end of the month. The company sold its Bahamas operation to its managers and has been busy this year setting up new businesses. It got an investment-banking license from Mauritius, an island east of Madagascar, opened a private bank on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia and started a “global e-money app” that it says will rival traditional banks.
“Banking as we have known it until now is finished,” Green said in an April 10 press release announcing the app.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.