ITI Group taps Stephen Hawksworth as CEO
Mr. Hawksworth joins ITI Group from ED&F Man Capital Markets. There, he led the European operation as Chief Executive Officer and co-founded the firm’s global futures, FX, and securities brokerage businesses.
ITI Group has hired Stephen Hawksworth as Chief Executive Officer. The 30-year industry veteran will be given the mission of consolidating its presence and build market share, in key global emerging markets.
Mr. Hawksworth joins ITI Group two years after resigning from ED&F Man Capital Markets. There, he led the European operation as Chief Executive Officer and co-founded the firm’s global futures, FX, and securities brokerage businesses.
During his long career in the financial services industry, he also led Fimat Singapore as CEO and was Head of Fixed Income and Equities at MF Global.
“I am excited about the huge opportunity that we have at ITI and the potential of what we can all achieve together in the future; about being able to work with talented and dedicated people with a transformational agenda; and to be able to advance a shared ambition amongst us all to build a dynamic and market-leading financial services firm”, said Stephen Hawksworth, Group CEO at ITI Group.
Made up of four key branches (ITI Capital, ITI Funds, ITI Digital and ITI Tech), ITI Group has recently appointed John Barker as Chairman of ITI Capital, and Nicholas Jordan and Patrick Martin as Non-Executive Directors of ITI Group, effective from December 2020.
Oleg Jelezko, Chairman of the Board for ITI Group, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Stephen Hawksworth as our new Group CEO. We have exciting plans and announcements in store for the coming months and have onboarded Mr. Hawksworth due to his innate ability and extensive experience in leading ambitious growth and development initiatives in the finance sector.”
In 2020, ITI Capital made the headlines for acquiring the clients of failed fund SVS Securities. At the time, SVS clients were told their money would be transferred to ITI, except for:
- Clients owing outstanding amounts to SVS which have not been paid prior to the transfer date June 11, 2020;
- Clients not eligible for FSCS compensation who have not paid the costs attributable to their client assets and/or client money prior to the transfer date (11 June 2020);
- Any client subject to a freezing order or other sanctions restrictions;
- FX Elective Professional Clients.
FSCS can pay compensation of up to £85,000 in respect of the total liabilities that might be owed to customers by SVS.
As FinanceFeeds reported, the final terms of the Distribution Plan and the Client Money order were approved by the Court on May 7, 2020. The approval is an important milestone in returning Client Assets and Client Money.
As per the report issued by the Administrators in February 2020, ITI Capital has secured client money of approximately £24.9 million, in full, from across 20 pre-appointment bank accounts.
The Administrators initially estimated that SVS Securities had approximately 21,000 clients. However, after conducting further analysis on the client and account base that is held across three different IT platforms, the Administrators identified a number of clients holding multiple accounts with the company.
This further analysis has identified approximately 19,200 unique clients. The custody assets and client money are held by a mixture of execution only, discretionary and FX clients.
As at August 5, 2019, SVS’s account base comprised 14,855 equity accounts (including 773 discretionary accounts), 10 prime broker accounts and 6,547 FX accounts.
