Towry receives 350 new investment complaints

Fee-based wealth adviser Towry EJ saw nearly 350 client complaints, almost exclusively investment-related, referred to the FOS in the second half of last year, figures show.

The advisory group received 349 complaints in H2 2010, 345 of which were related to investment and the remainder to do with life, pensions and decumulation.

Of this total, the Ombudsman found in favour of the consumer in 84% of cases.

Towry is one of a number of advisory groups listed in the FOS's latest set of complaints figures, out today.

AWD Chase de Vere received 91 new complaints in the period, mostly relating to life and pensions, with 58% upheld.

Meanwhile, Zurich-owned Openwork received 41 new complaints, with 24% upheld, and Aegon-owned Positive Solutions received 37, with 65% found in favour of the client.

Elsewhere, Sesame Ltd, part of the Sesame group, received 76 complaints with 60% upheld and wealth manager St James's Place received 35 (46% upheld).

The FOS says, during the six-month period, it received a total of 97,237 new complaints - an increase of 15% on the 84,212 cases received in the first half of last year.

Of these new cases, 91% related to 162 financial businesses.

The number of new complaints about each of the individual businesses ranged from 30 to 12,234, while five financial services groups had more than 6,000 complaints each referred to the FOS, accounting for some 54,078 cases in total.

The FSA also publishes complaints data and is set to release its latest figures in March.