The Ombud for Financial Services Providers, Noluntu Bam, has issued three more rulings against financial advisers whose clients lost their savings in the collapsed Realcor property syndication.
Realcor fronted a complex web of companies that, among other things, were responsible for developing the Blaauwberg Beach Hotel north of Cape Town. Realcor went into liquidation in 2011, and the unfinished hotel was sold off, leaving thousands of investors, mainly pensioners, high and dry.
The advisers have been ordered to pay their clients back the money they invested. Bam ruled that they had contravened the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act and its code of conduct by not establishing the degree of risk involved in the Realcor investment and by not communicating that risk to their clients, thus making them directly responsible for their clients' losses.
Stephanus Johannes van der Walt and the company he represented, Huis van Oranje Financial Services of Moregloed, Pretoria, were ordered to pay Mrs B the R200 000 she had invested in 2009.
Van der Walt and Huis van Oranje were also ordered to pay Mr S the R200 00 he had invested in 2008 and 2009.
Petrus Swart and the company he represented, Groeneland Insurance Brokers of Grabouw, Western Cape, were ordered to pay Mr T the R350 000 he had invested between 2008 and 2010.