Investor says £160,000 vanished after adviser went bankrupt as linked firms fall into disarray
Probe by Financial Mail on Sunday finds ties between unauthorised adviser, a wound-up company and a dissolved investment firm with ties to a local councillor
An investor says about £160,000 of savings cannot be traced after a long-running relationship with a financial adviser ended with the adviser’s bankruptcy and several related firms collapsing or being struck off.
The investor, identified by Financial Mail on Sunday writer Tony Hetherington as M.W., told investigators she met adviser Christopher Burgess of Alderley Wealth Management in 2017 and made investments over subsequent years. In 2021 she said Burgess asked her to transfer £10,000 a day for nine days to Alderley Wealth Management (AWM) and to a company called The Life Team Ltd. She received monthly interest payments until 2022, after which payments became irregular. In May 2023 she was told the principal would be repaid that month, but payments did not materialise.
Hetherington’s subsequent enquiries and public records searches show a complex web of corporate failures and regulatory action. Alderley Wealth Management has not been authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority since 2012, court records show, and Burgess, who owned AWM, was declared bankrupt and resigned as a director in May 2024. County court judgments against Burgess include four entries, the largest for £17,339; filings also show at least two CCJs against his company.
When Burgess recommended lending money to The Life Team, he was listed as a director of that company. The High Court ordered The Life Team to be wound up in May 2023 for failing to pay its debts. Burgess told the investor that monies invested through AWM and The Life Team had been "utilised by Basik Money," a separate firm; the investor said she never authorised any investment with Basik.
Basik Money itself has been the subject of regulatory and corporate problems. The firm filed no accounts after 2020, has a county court judgment for £2,711, and was removed from the Financial Conduct Authority register after the regulator concluded the firm appeared to have ceased trading. Companies House records link Basik Money to a parent company called Basik Ltd, but those records also show Basik Ltd was dissolved in 2022.
Company filings identify John Place as the figure behind Basik Money and as a director of The Life Team. Companies House and council records show Place used an office address in Glasgow in filings but lives in Macclesfield, where he is a member of Cheshire East Council and lists his occupation as "retired." Hetherington found that Burgess and Place previously ran UK Investment Strategies Limited, a company liquidated in 2016 with debts of more than £280,000; its office furniture was subsequently sold to The Life Team.
The investor told Hetherington she had been described by Burgess as an "inexperienced investor" with about £150,000 from a divorce and that Burgess had advised she could afford to risk £30,000. She signed one deal acknowledging the risks, a record Burgess later used to treat her as an "experienced investor," Hetherington reports. The investor said she was not made aware of the Basik Money link until September 2023 and that the loss had "ruined my life." Burgess told Hetherington he could not find any application from the investor to make a large loan to Basik Money and said, "I can confirm there is no indication the investor will not receive her money back in full." Hetherington noted that with Basik Money removed from the FCA register and other firms wound up or dissolved, the recovery of funds was uncertain.
Hetherington said he had invited comment from Councillor Place and the Labour Party in Macclesfield; neither had responded by the time of publication. The investor has reported the matter to police, Hetherington said. He recommended the investor also contact the Insolvency Service and offered to co-operate with investigators in supplying evidence.
In a separate case highlighted by Hetherington, an 85-year-old former scientist who claimed to have worked at Nasa was jailed for two years after admitting running an unauthorised investment business and defrauding investors of about £1 million. John Burford ran Financial Trading Strategies Ltd from his home in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and over five years concealed losses while using client money to buy property and support his lifestyle, court records show. He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to fraud and operating an unauthorised investment business; Judge Coles said at sentencing that "old age is never an excuse for avoiding punishment for serious offending." The Financial Conduct Authority has said it will seek confiscation to compensate victims.
The Financial Conduct Authority recommends that people who believe they have been mis-sold investments or are victims of investment fraud contact their local police and report the matter to Action Fraud. Hetherington asked readers with possible evidence of wrongdoing to write to him at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY, or to email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk, and to send only copies of original documents as originals cannot be returned.