Court Appoints Special Administrators to Jarvis Investment Management

Jarvis Investment Management Limited, the FCA-authorised stockbroker wholly owned by AIM-quoted Jarvis Securities plc, has entered special administration, with Adam Stephens and Philip Hemming of S&W Partners LLP appointed as joint special administrators. The Financial Conduct Authority, which published a notice for clients on 15 October 2026, dates the appointment to 14 October 2026. Jarvis Securities said in a regulatory announcement dated 15 October 2026 that its subsidiary ‘has today, following Court approval been placed into Special Administration’ under regulation 6(1)(a) and/or regulation 6(1)(b) of the Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations 2011 (SI 2011/245), and that the Court appointed the pair as joint special administrators. The appointment follows the 7 July 2025 sale of the firm’s retail execution-only brokerage business to Interactive Investor Services Limited for a total consideration of up to £11 million sterling, alongside an associated wind-down of operations that Jarvis Securities had anticipated would take approximately 15 months.

Jarvis Investment, which holds FCA firm reference number 116413, is authorised and regulated to provide wealth management services, the FCA said. Companies House records the company, number 01844601, as a private limited company incorporated on 30 August 1984, with its registered office at 78 Mount Ephraim, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and a nature-of-business classification of financial intermediation not elsewhere classified; it was named Jarvis Investment Management PLC until 4 December 2009. The joint special administrators act as agents of the company without personal liability and are authorised as insolvency practitioners by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, according to their dedicated client webpage; all Jarvis Investment staff employed at the date of the special administration have been retained to assist with the return of client assets. Jarvis Securities said it has ceased to operate or control the subsidiary, whose affairs are now managed by the administrators.

Path to Special Administration

On 16 September 2022, Jarvis Investment agreed to a voluntary requirement with the FCA that restricted the activities it could undertake without the regulator’s consent, the FCA notice states. The joint special administrators say the September 2022 restrictions were agreed voluntarily between the FCA and the company, limiting certain activities with the aim of protecting customers.

According to the joint special administrators, Jarvis Investment sold most of its Direct Client book to Interactive Investor Services Limited in 2025 and began an orderly wind-down of its remaining operations, but that wind-down did not complete. Following what they describe as recent unforeseen events, the company’s board concluded that it would soon be unable to meet its financial obligations, and a sale of the business was explored without finding a suitable purchaser. The company exited the SIPP market in April 2024.

The company’s filing history at Companies House shows statements of capital following successive share allotments rising from £1,050,000 after an allotment on 10 January 2024 to £3,450,000 after an allotment on 21 March 2025. The company extended its current accounting period from 31 December 2025 to 30 June 2026 in a filing made on 17 December 2025; its last full accounts were made up to 31 December 2024, and its next accounts, made up to 30 June 2026, are due by 31 March 2027. The filing history also records the termination of Andrew James Grant’s appointment as a director on 31 March 2025, William Kett’s on 1 July 2026 and Richard James Pearson’s on 16 July 2026.

Client Assets and the Proposed Broker Transfer

Jarvis Investment provided retail execution-only stockbroking, Individual Savings Accounts and Self-Invested Personal Pensions, together with custody, administration and settlement services for both individual investors and other financial services firms, according to the joint special administrators. They describe two client bases: Direct Clients, retail customers who used the firm’s online or telephone execution-only stockbroking services without investment advice, and Corporate Clients (stockbrokers, investment advisers and wealth managers known as Model B professional clients) whose own customers were also Jarvis Investment clients for custody and execution purposes. The firm provided services under the brands and trading names x-o.co.uk, ShareDeal Active, London South East Trading, SharePrices Trading, Dial-n-Deal, Sellmysharecertificates.com and Signature.

The FCA describes special administration as a modified insolvency procedure for certain investment firms, in which court-appointed administrators take control of the firm and aim to return client money and custody assets as soon as they reasonably can, ensure timely engagement with market infrastructure bodies and the authorities, and either rescue the firm as a going concern or wind it up in the best interests of creditors. The process is governed by the 2011 Regulations and the associated England and Wales Rules, and the administrators must also comply with the FCA’s Client Asset sourcebook; the company remains FCA authorised.

A Primary Pooling Event occurred under the Client Asset sourcebook when the company entered special administration, meaning all client money held at that date is treated as pooled in a single Client Money Pool. On their dedicated webpage, the joint special administrators say they are reconciling the pool and custody assets to establish each client’s entitlement, and that they ‘currently understand that there is no shortfall in Client Assets as at 14 October 2026’, while noting this cannot be confirmed until the reconciliation process completes. Clients cannot currently access, withdraw, sell or transfer their client money or custody assets, and the firm’s client portal is unavailable.

The joint special administrators say the quickest and most cost-effective way to return client assets is to transfer all clients and their transferable client assets to a single FCA-regulated broker, after which clients would be able to access their portfolios and continue trading. They say they are in advanced discussions with a preferred broker, hope to complete due diligence and agree transfer terms within eight weeks of their appointment, and cannot disclose the broker’s identity while discussions remain confidential; clients will not be required to pay a transfer fee in connection with any transfer. The administrators must write to clients and creditors with details of their strategy for the special administration by 9 December 2026, eight weeks after appointment, and must hold an initial meeting of clients and creditors within ten weeks, stated as no later than 9 December 2026. Clients will receive a portfolio valuation and statement confirming their position at the date of the special administration and its classification as client money or custody assets; dividends, interest, coupons and other returns accruing after the appointment, described as Corporate Action Income, will be held in a separate post-pooling money account. For SIPP and ISA holdings, the administrators say any process will be designed to keep investments within the relevant pension wrapper and to preserve the tax-efficient ISA wrapper, liaising with HMRC as required.

The FCA said costs associated with distributing money and assets back to clients, including the special administrators’ fees, may be deducted from client money or assets if there are insufficient funds to pay for their return, and that for eligible claims the Financial Services Compensation Scheme may cover any shortfall in client money or assets and the costs of returning them, up to £85,000. The joint special administrators say they are already working with the FSCS to determine the position of eligible claimants and that clients do not need to submit a claim to the FSCS at this time.

From 25 June 2026, before entering special administration, the company operated two redress schemes addressing past failings, according to the joint special administrators: the LSE Redress, covering higher transaction fees charged to clients introduced by London South East Trading or SharePrices Trading, and the Terms of Business Redress, covering unclear and potentially misleading language in historic retail terms of business describing the rate and circumstances in which interest would be paid on uninvested cash balances. The schemes, which had been due to operate until 23 December 2026, have closed because of the insolvency; eligible clients who had not been paid are expected to hold unsecured claims and must submit proof of debt forms, and the administrators are liaising with the FSCS over whether unpaid redress may qualify for compensation. Offered redress comprised compensation plus interest calculated at the Bank of England base rate plus 1%.

Trade creditors, including suppliers and HMRC, may rank as unsecured creditors of the company, and the administrators say they are unable at this stage to comment on whether any dividend will be paid to unsecured creditors. Clients facing immediate financial hardship may contact the administrators; in some circumstances eligible clients may receive a hardship payment from the FSCS before their client money is returned, in exchange for transferring their rights to that money to the FSCS, and court approval of a distribution plan may be required before client assets can be released.

Jarvis Securities said that, as a consequence of the appointment, it has become an AIM Rule 15 cash shell, requiring it to complete a reverse takeover under AIM Rule 14 or seek to become an investing company under AIM Rule 8 within six months to avoid suspension of its ordinary shares from trading on AIM, with cancellation of its admission to follow if no such transaction is completed within a further six months. Its directors said they do not intend to undertake such a transaction and currently intend to seek cancellation of the company’s admission to trading on AIM under AIM Rule 41 shortly, with the expectation that any distributable reserves remaining at that time would be returned to shareholders, subject to shareholder approval. The announcement was released at 07:00 on 15 October 2026, according to the RNS announcements index for Jarvis Securities.

Both the FCA and the joint special administrators warned clients to remain alert to scams and to be cautious if approached by claims management companies. The administrators said there is no requirement for any Jarvis Investment client to make a bank transfer to a third party to secure the transfer or release of their client assets.