The Tenet GroupJun 5 2024

Tenet Group calls in the administrators

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Tenet Group calls in the administrators
(Sebastian Molina Fotografia/Unsplash)

Tenet Group and three of its subsidiary companies have called in the administrators and shut down some parts of the business.

It comes nearly a year after parts of the business were shut down and sold off.

According to an update, Ed Boyle, Howard Smith and Rob Spence of Interpath have been appointed as joint administrators of Tenet Group Limited, with Boyle and Spence also appointed as joint administrators of its subsidiary companies Tenet Ltd, TenetConnect Ltd and TenetConnect Services Ltd.

The administrators said there would be 95 redundancies but 52 staff would be kept on to help them while they manage the wind down of the businesses.

Smith, managing director at Interpath, said: "We're now focused on winding down the business and we are in contact with the FCA, FSCS and stakeholders to ensure an orderly process.”

Meanwhile Tenet Mortgage Solutions Ltd and Tenet Compliance Services Ltd have ceased to trade but have not entered into administration.

Tenet Financial Services Ltd has also stopped carrying out regulated activities but it has also not been placed into administration.

It means any financial advisers who remain appointed representatives of Tenet Financial Services Ltd are no longer approved and will be unable to provide regulated advice until they are re-registered - a process which may take a number of months.

Tenet Employee Benefit Solutions, a "non-unregulated" service within Tenet Financial Services, and Paragon Insurance Company (Guernsey) Limited continue to operate as normal.

The administrators said clients may be able to claim with the FSCS should they have concerns about the suitability of advice they received from an appointed representative of Tenet Connect Limited or Tenet Connect Services Limited.

Rocky time for Tenet

It comes almost a year after the network shut down and ARs were moved to Openwork as part of a deal.

TenetConnect ARs were given the choice of retaining their independent status through Openwork's IFA business 2plan Wealth Management or becoming part of the restricted Openwork proposition.

Meanwhile LSL Property Services, owner of the Primis mortgage network, bought TenetLime, the mortgage and protection advisory network with 133 appointed representatives.

Only last month Tenet sold its national IFA practice Tenet & You to private-equity backed My Pension Expert.

Tenet has had a tough time in recent years and there were a number of changes as back in March 2023 the group announced that chief executive Mark Scanlon and chief financial officer Martin Tyler would leave the business with immediate effect.

Tenet Group then appointed Helen Ball as chief executive to take over from Scanlon.

Tenet Group, which is owned by Aviva, Abrdn and Aegon, decided to close its network after the a strategic review.

Many advisers had an issue with Tenet's 2019 switch to back-office system Intelliflo Office after many had problems, as reported by FTAdviser at the time.

In 2020 Tenet refocused its business on core areas, centred around its adviser networks and Tenet Compliance Services.

All of this saw ARs leave the network over several years, with few new firms joining to make up the numbers.

Back in August 2023, FT Adviser looked at the numbers on the FCA register and found according to the register in 2023 alone, TenetConnect had 19 AR firms leave the network but only saw two firms join.

But arguably the worst two years for departures were 2022 and 2021, where 38 and 39 firms left respectively.

amy.austin@ft.com