Fund manager Brite Advisors South Africa says it will approach the Financial Services Tribunal after it was fined R10 million and had a financial services provider (FSP) licence withdrawn by SA's financial regulator.
Brite Advisors South Africa is the local chapter of the larger Brite Advisors group, a fund manager and consultancy with offices in Australia, Europe and the United Arab Emirates.
It was formed in 2019 when it acquired the financial services companies deVere Investments South Africa and deVere SA Acuma. Both companies had previously been part of the deVere Group, a wealth management company founded by Nigel Green.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority announced this week that the two companies later renamed as Brite Advisors SA "contravened various financial sector laws" between February 2010 and August 2015. It also fined Green R2.5 million and barred him from working in SA's financial services for five years.
"Brite Advisory became aware of the FSCA's investigation regarding the alleged conduct and actions of deVere Acuma South Africa and some former employees between 2010 and 2016, during its due diligence," the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
"However, it was satisfied that employees responsible for the alleged mismanagement had left the company and proceeded to acquire the company and its FSP licence."
Brite also said that it was not using the "tainted" FSP licence that had been withdrawn by the FSCA and had been using a new, valid FSP licence since last year.
"Brite Advisors' clients are not impacted by recent FSCA findings against deVere Acuma South Africa … or the administrative action taken against the tainted licence under which Brite Advisors was operating at the time." It added that said that Green has "no connection or involvement with Brite Advisors".
While deVere did not reply to a request for comment from Fin24, a spokesperson told Bloomberg that it expects the "wrongly-made decisions to be reversed in the near future".