Pensions adviser who transferred out 80% of clients was "grossly negligent"

A Swansea-based financial adviser who was "grossly negligent" and "demonstrated a high degree of incompetence" has been banned from advising on pension transfers as well as from holding any senior management function in a regulated firm.

By Neasa MacErlean

Simon Hughes of S&M Hughes Ltd (now in liquidation) has agreed to pay £158,600 to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme as a redress contribution for the people he wrongly helped transfer out of the British Steel Pension Scheme and other defined benefit employer schemes. The sum, which is net of a 30 per cent discount for agreeing an early settlement, amounts to under two per cent of the £8.4 million so far paid out to his former clients by the Compensation Scheme. The sole person responsible for pension transfer advice at his firm, he advised 80 per cent of them - 232 out of 287 - to transfer between April 2015 and May 2019.