Probing the pension broker behind NUST.
Posted on February 4th, 2010 | 163 Comments |
In this story I will be looking at the financial brain behind the NUST, Lynn Steele, and her company, “The SIPP Broker Ltd”, in Halifax. Formed less than two years ago, the SIPP Broker Ltd’s rise has been not far short of meteoric, and it’s business development team includes figures such as ex Chelsea player, David Speedie, and ex ‘Spurs player, Graham Roberts, who were brought in to exploit oppotunities from the highly lucrative world of football.
It was Speedie who caused a huge furore in 2004 after referring to black people as “blackies” and “ni**ers” at a charity function, after agreeing with Ron Atkinson’s comments about black player, Marcel Desailly, who was described as a “lazy thick ni**er” by the veteran manager and pundit. It was Roberts who, in his capacity as a business development advisor for the pension selling firm, also fronted the “Fans 401” bid for Newcastle United some time ago.
On that bid, Lynn Steele said in an interview with the Halifax Courier:
“The supporters’ trust is the key.”
One way Steele established supporter trust was to cut the NUST in on the deal, promising them a percentage of revenue raised, and gaining their full support for the scheme. When that bid fell through however, SIPP Broker Ltd turned to it’s partners in the NUST to reignite it’s business development opportunity, and the “Yes We Can” campaign was born. Speaking at the launch of the second campaign in October of last year, she explained how the opportunity would work:
“We need around 4,000 investors to put in the £20,000 and then we have the magical £100m figure as HM Revenue and Customs will top it up with £5,000 in tax relief. The money could come from businesses, individuals or from pension pots.
“We haven’t tried yet and we already have £20m committed, I think it could be very easy to get the rest with some effort.
“It could take three to six months to get the money raised if we are using the pension model. If we get more than £100m then we can put more money into the club.”
Returning to the previous interview with Mrs Steele, there was another interesting part in the piece, though not from Mrs Steele herself. The Courier explained:
“Now the firm has 50 introducer firms on its books – independent financial advisers, accountants and law firms – who refer their clients to the SIPP Broker because of its specialist knowledge.”
Would any of these firms perhaps be on this list?
“We will be launching a list in the next few days of 27 IFAs who can advise you on the best way to invest in the Club.” (From the NUST website).
It’s guess it’s time to dig deeper…
1st oh yeah!