The firm provided thousands of SIPPs and also provides administration for a small number of Small Self-Administered Schemes (SSAS), regulated by the Pensions Regulator.

Today (29 July) the directors of Hartley Pensions placed the firm into administration at the request of the FCA, and appointed Peter Kubik and Brian Johnson of UHY Hacker Young LLP as joint administrators.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has also placed Hartley Pensions under investigation and the FCA says that the joint administrators of Hartley Pensions will be writing shortly to clients.

Earlier this month, at Hartley’s request, the FCA halted Hartley Pensions ability to accept new pension contributions as the firm struggled to deal with a number of "issues."

Hartley also temporarily ceased transfers or switches of SIPPs or SSASs. 

On 4 March, Hartley was banned from taking on new business by the FCA. An asset sale restriction was also put in place. The FCA said in March that the requirements were being imposed due to a number of “serious operational and regulatory issues” that the firm is attempting to deal with and says they are intended to protect the firm’s customers.

Neither the FCA nor Hartley have made clear yet what the issues are.

Hartley has been seeking another SIPP operator to take over the running of the firm.

The FCA says existing SIPPs and SSAS assets are unaffected by the restrictions as they are held in trust by separate trustee companies.  

Hartley Pensions has taken over the client books of several failed SIPP providers in recent years. It bought the Guinness Mahon book in February 2020 after the firm collapsed. The deal meant the transfer of 4,000 SIPPs previously administered by GMTC which suffered a string of problems and legal actions from unhappy clients.

Other SIPP books the firm has acquired in recent years include GPC, Berkeley Burke SIPP and Greyfriars AM.