ITI Capital enters special administration over client assets

ITI Capital Limited, the FCA-authorised broker that held shares and bonds on behalf of clients, entered special administration on 25 September 2026. Duncan Perring and David Soden of Teneo Financial Advisory Limited were appointed as special administrators and now control the firm, according to a notice published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The appointment matters to anyone who still holds cash or investments with ITI Capital. It does not mean the firm has stopped being regulated, and it does not mean assets are lost. But it does mean clients now depend on a court-supervised insolvency process, rather than the ordinary running of the business, to get their money and securities back.

The FCA says ITI Capital had already agreed, on 10 August 2025, to stop most regulated activity in the UK and overseas and to stop accepting new client money or custody assets. Special administration is a further, more formal step that follows that restriction.

What special administration actually means

Special administration is a modified insolvency procedure created specifically for certain UK investment firms that hold client money and custody assets. It is separate from an ordinary company administration or liquidation, and it carries three statutory objectives, as set out by the FCA and by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS): returning client money and custody assets as soon as reasonably practicable; engaging promptly with the FCA and other authorities and with market infrastructure; and rescuing the firm, or winding it up, in the best interests of its creditors.

The FCA confirms that ITI Capital remains authorised and subject to FCA rules during the administration, even though the special administrators now control the firm's operations. Authorisation continuing is not a guarantee that every client will recover everything they held. It means the firm is still within the regulatory perimeter and its administrators are bound by the special-administration rules rather than acting outside them.

The administrators must assess and reconcile the client money and custody assets ITI Capital held before determining how they can be returned to clients where possible.

What clients should expect in the next eight weeks

According to the FCA, the administrators are expected to write to ITI Capital clients within eight weeks of the appointment to explain the proposed process for returning money and assets and how clients can submit a claim. Counting eight weeks from 25 September 2026 gives 20 November 2026.

That date is worth reading carefully. It is an indicative calculated date by which clients should expect to have heard from the administrators about the process — not a promise that assets will actually be returned by then. The FCA's notice sets a communication timetable, not a distribution timetable. No administrator proposal or first client circular had been made publicly available at the time of writing, so the detail of how claims will be handled is not yet known.

Could clients receive less than they held?

The FCA notice is explicit that this is possible, though not confirmed. Costs connected with returning client money and custody assets, including the special administrators' own fees, may be deducted from client property itself if there are insufficient other funds in the estate to cover them. This reflects the wider rules for this type of administration, which allow expenses of returning client assets, including administrators' remuneration, to be paid from those assets in a set order of priority.

This does not mean ITI Capital clients will necessarily see deductions. No shortfall, deduction or distribution cost has been confirmed for this case. The value and composition of the client money and assets ITI Capital held, and whether records match holdings in full, have not been established in public materials at this stage.

When FSCS protection may apply

Where a client has an eligible claim, the FSCS may cover a shortfall in client money or custody assets, plus qualifying costs of returning them, up to an aggregate limit of £85,000 per eligible person, per firm. This is the maximum for protected investment business under the FCA Handbook and current FSCS guidance, and it applies to firms that fail on or after 1 April 2019.

That £85,000 figure should not be confused with the separate FSCS deposit-protection limit, which is £120,000 and took effect on 1 December 2025. The two limits cover different kinds of financial firm and different kinds of loss; the £85,000 figure is the one relevant to an investment broker such as ITI Capital.

FSCS cover is conditional, not automatic. For a claim to qualify, several things must be true: the firm must have been authorised, the specific service and product must have been a regulated activity, the claimant must meet FSCS eligibility rules, the claimant must have suffered an actual financial loss, and the firm must owe a legal liability for that loss. Eligibility rules differ for individuals and for businesses, and the FCA says these criteria will need to be applied to ITI Capital clients and worked through with the administrators.

Crucially, the FSCS does not compensate clients simply because an investment performed badly. The scheme responds to a legal liability arising from the firm's failure, such as a confirmed shortfall in client assets, not to ordinary market losses. Whether any ITI Capital clients have an eligible claim, and whether any shortfall exists to trigger it, had not been determined at the time of writing.

What clients should do now

The FCA advises clients to direct questions about the administration, complaints or claims to the special administrators, using the official contact channels Teneo provides, rather than to third parties. It also says that most customers are unlikely to benefit from paying a claims-management company or law firm simply to help recover assets that are already subject to the administrators' process, since such firms may charge a fee for this. The FCA separately warns clients to be alert to clone-firm approaches and unsolicited cold calls relating to the administration.

Keeping account statements, correspondence and transaction records will help clients respond to whatever claim process the administrators set out. Clients should wait for that formal instruction before assuming they know how or when to claim, since the exact procedure has not yet been published.

What remains unresolved

Several parts of this case are still open. The precise value of client money and custody assets held, the number of clients affected, and whether any shortfall exists have not been made public. It is not yet known whether assets will be returned directly to clients, sold for cash, or transferred in bulk to another broker. The FSCS has not published a case-specific determination on ITI Capital, so how compensation would be funded or claimed in practice is unclear. Treatment of assets held in tax wrappers such as stocks and shares ISAs or self-invested personal pensions has not been confirmed for this case either.

Clients should treat the administrators' own communications, expected within eight weeks of the 25 September 2026 appointment (an indicative calculated date of 20 November 2026), as the primary source for what happens next, and can check the FCA's published notice for updates in the meantime.