Apr. 14, 2020
Dear Sir Please find below my comments on Administrative Proceeding File No. 3-18527. Further to my discussion(s)with Matthew Doherty at Brite Advisers, I feel furious that I was mis-advised by DeVere in terms of undisclosed fees and the investments themselves by B Alderson (yes my namesake – one of the misguided reasons for choosing him). In particular, I was unaware of the initial commission, which I now understand from the CEO letter of June 18 2018 to be 7%. Had I known about the commission I would never have agreed to the transfer – its daylight robbery ( or since it was done in the dark, midnight robbery) on my initial premium of $2.2m this is $154,000 in rounds terms!!!!! I understand that DeVere also took further commission on the foreign exchange transfer, which was also undisclosed, of 1% as I understand it, or about $22,000 In terms of investment advice, I believe very strongly that in our initial meeting to choose investments that the risks and rewards (and no doubt the commissions) were mis-represented. In particular with regards to the UBS notes, we discussed the potential returns and when dividends were payable and when not, and I was happy with the potential return based on the historic returns. However I did not realize that the capital value would also be affected and feel strongly that not only was I not aware of these risks but that, despite the markets being very high at the time, I was assured that the capital was secure. I understood from Benjamin that the inclusion of China with the western exchanges would reduce the risk but instead it seems to have increased it. Despite this the actual price dropped from $350,000 to $190,000, a loss of $160,000 in less than a year, and this was before the corona virus, which all but guarantees this or a greater loss before the redemption date in June 2020. This does not include any undisclosed commissions on my other investments. Overall I feel very betrayed and ripped off by DeVere by over $336,000 less their legitimate fees, and that they have gouged me while delivering very poor overall performance on what is left of my lifetime pension savings. Best Regards Tim Alderson