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Keydata: Lifemark administration extended by six months
by Iain Martin on Feb 16, 2010 at 11:40
Lifemark has been given another six months to work on a restructuring plan by the Luxembourg financial regulator.
The Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) has extended the administration of life settlement vehicle Lifemark, the bonds of which underpin Keydata's Defined Income plans held by around 23,000 consumers. Provisional administrator KPMG has been given more power over Lifemark by CSSF and ordered to step up its control and monitoring of its activities.
‘It is important to understand that this measure does not prevent Lifemark, now under the sole management powers of the provisional administrator, to further develop a possible restructuring plan that must still be accepted by the CSSF,’ stated the Luxembourg regulator.
The CSSF said it was prompted to extend the administration by the audit report produced by KPMG. Lifemark requested permission to change its bonds to non-interest paying zero coupon bonds on 1 February.
Investors with money in Lifemark faced delays in receiving income payments over the Christmas period and the company is believed to be facing a liquidity gap between 2012 and 2013, according to FSA court documents seen by Citywire.
The CSSF put Lifemark in to administration in November giving KPMG power to audit and investigate the firm.
Lifemark was set up by Keydata managing director Stewart Ford (pictured) and was then managed by Luxembourg-based company Tandem Partners Sarl.
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5 comments so far. Why not have your say?
David Dundass
Feb 16, 2010 at 19:14
.... would you have put your savings with Keydata?
report thisMr Ed
Feb 18, 2010 at 09:33
Not a chance.
report thisPeter Hilton
Feb 20, 2010 at 12:37
Perhaps the FSA could insist that the owners of "Approved" Companies which they allow to tout for our savings should publish their 'photos on front of their glossy brochures (which, by tne way, the FSA has admitted that they don't even bother to read). This would appear to be far more help in allowing us to make our judgements than anything else the FSA has done for us so far. Sack them all - NOW.
From a Keydata/Lifemark "saver"
report thisStewart Lloyd
Feb 20, 2010 at 13:30
My thoughts exactly as soon as I opened the article. What is the definition of a 'spiv' remind me now!!!
report thisAlan Dershowitz
Feb 23, 2010 at 11:12
FSA / CSSF collusion
I don't reckon there's any intention to try to save this portfolio. The FSA blew up Keydata for a 5 million tax bill, ( which they could have paid ) and panicked the Luxembourg regulator into stopping a Lifemark bond issue for KD clients. That would have saved the whole portfolio, but the FSA and CSSF blew it. And they know it. They have potentially destroyed hundreds of millions in savings for the sake of a commission investigation. Well done. Its like Tony Blair on Iraq - we killed hundreds of thousands and created millions of refugees, but that's OK because we caught a nasty man.
If there's a bondholders meeting, people will want to know how we got here, and then the balls-up by the FSA and CSSF would become apparent. So they#ll do what they can to avoid having the meeting.
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