UK brokerage ITI Capital Ltd has entered special administration, moving a firm that had already spent more than a year under regulatory restrictions from an orderly wind-down into a formal court-supervised insolvency process.
On September 25, Duncan Perring and David Soden of Teneo Financial Advisory Ltd were appointed special administrators of the FCA-authorised broker. They now take control of the firm and will be responsible for assessing its client money, custody assets and creditor claims.
The Financial Conduct Authority said the administrators will seek to return client money and custody assets as soon as reasonably practicable, engage with relevant authorities and market infrastructure providers, and either rescue the business or wind it up in creditors’ best interests.
ITI Capital remains FCA authorised during the administration and continues to be subject to the regulator’s rules.
Special Administration Follows a Long Regulatory Wind-Down
The appointment does not come out of nowhere. ITI had already been operating under significant restrictions since 2025.
The FCA says ITI agreed on August 10, 2025 to stop carrying out most regulated activity in the UK and overseas and to stop accepting new client money or custody assets. ITI’s own website describes additional voluntary restrictions taking effect in July 2025 that prevented regulated activity, including trading, while allowing the firm to continue safeguarding money and investments it already held.
During that period, ITI described itself as conducting an orderly wind-down and instructed clients to transfer investments to another regulated broker or liquidate holdings and withdraw cash. The broker said client money and securities were held in segregated accounts and maintained under FCA Client Assets Sourcebook requirements.
ITI also said during the wind-down that there was “no anticipated threat” to its solvency. The move into special administration therefore represents a material change in the legal status of the process, although neither the FCA nor the administrators have yet publicly explained the specific event that made special administration necessary.
That distinction matters. Other brokers have exited regulated markets through voluntary license withdrawals, including when FXDD surrendered its Malta investment services license. Special administration goes further: control shifts to court-appointed insolvency practitioners operating under a regime specifically designed for investment firms holding customer assets.
Clients Should Hear From Teneo Within Eight Weeks
The immediate focus is now on determining exactly what money and investments ITI holds for each client.
The FCA says the special administrators will assess those holdings and decide how they can be returned. Clients should receive a communication from Teneo within eight weeks explaining the proposed process and how claims can be submitted.
Special administration does not itself establish that client assets are missing. Client money and custody assets are generally separated from a broker’s own corporate assets under FCA rules, and the administrators must reconcile the records before determining what can be transferred or distributed.
Costs complicate that process. Fees associated with identifying, administering and returning client property can in some circumstances be deducted from client pools if there are insufficient other resources to cover them.
For eligible clients, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme may cover eligible shortfalls in client money or assets and certain distribution costs, subject to the current £85,000 compensation limit per eligible claimant.
The importance of FCA authorisation becomes especially visible when a firm fails. That same regulatory perimeter is why efforts by firms such as Binance to secure an FCA license for the UK market matter beyond simply gaining permission to sell services: authorisation determines which conduct, custody and compensation frameworks may apply when something goes wrong.
ITI Once Received Clients From Another Broker’s Special Administration
There is an unusual historical layer to ITI’s case.
In 2020, ITI Capital became the nominated broker for the vast majority of clients of SVS Securities after SVS entered special administration in August 2019. Client money and custody assets were transferred from SVS to ITI as part of the court-approved distribution process.
ITI said at the time that it was taking on the SVS client book and giving those investors access to their assets again after months of disruption.
Years later, ITI’s own website still says some former SVS clients may have cash or securities held with the firm. During its wind-down, ITI operated a tracing programme aimed at reconnecting with former SVS customers who had unclaimed balances.
That means the administrators may now be dealing not only with ITI’s direct historical clients but also with part of a legacy client population whose assets had already been transferred once as part of another failed broker’s special administration.
The Big Question Is Whether Client Assets Reconcile Cleanly
For customers, the headline “special administration” can sound like a direct statement that their investments have disappeared. It is not.
The crucial number has not yet been published: whether the money and securities recorded as belonging to ITI clients match the assets actually held in segregated accounts and with third-party custodians.
If the reconciliation is clean, the problem becomes primarily operational. Administrators need to identify clients, verify entitlements, deal with illiquid or difficult-to-transfer securities and arrange either distributions or transfers to another broker.
If a shortfall appears, the story changes considerably. The size and cause of that gap would determine how much clients recover directly and how important FSCS protection becomes.
This is why comparisons with other UK special administrations need care. Dolfin Financial, for example, also moved from an attempted solvent wind-down into special administration, and subsequent regulatory action involving former Dolfin executives became a separate issue from the mechanics of returning client assets. Each administration ultimately depends on the individual firm’s books, custody arrangements, liabilities and available assets.
The Eight-Week Update Will Be More Important Than the Appointment Itself
The appointment of administrators is the legal milestone. The first reconciliation results will be the financial milestone.
Investors should watch for three things in Teneo’s initial communications: the amount of client money and custody assets identified, whether administrators find any shortfalls, and whether they intend to transfer portfolios to another regulated broker rather than return individual assets and cash directly.
A bulk transfer can be the cleaner outcome where thousands of accounts are involved, particularly if portfolios contain securities that are cumbersome to liquidate or re-register individually. But it requires another firm willing to accept the book and a distribution process that can withstand regulatory and court scrutiny.
ITI’s history with SVS shows how such a process can work. It also illustrates how long the consequences can last. Some former SVS clients were still being traced years after their assets moved to ITI.
For ITI clients, there is therefore no reliable basis yet for assuming either a full recovery or a loss. The special administration regime is designed specifically to prioritise the return of customer assets, but that protection does not remove reconciliation delays, administration costs or the possibility of shortfalls.
The next meaningful development will come when Teneo discloses what ITI actually holds against what its records say clients are owed. Until that assessment is complete, the most important fact is not simply that the broker has entered administration, but that responsibility for protecting and returning its customer assets has now moved from ITI’s management to court-appointed administrators.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
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