Phoenix debt service
The Phoenix Capital Services GmbH was a securities trading bank based in Frankfurt am Main . The company offered investors the opportunity to invest funds in option trades . However, these were only partially carried out, if at all; much of it went into a fraudulent pyramid scheme . The case is considered to be one of the largest cases of investment fraud in German post-war history.
On March 10, 2005, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) prohibited the company from continuing its business operations. On 14 March 2005, opened Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main , the insolvency proceedings .
history
According to his own statements, the company was founded in 1977 by Dieter Breitkreuz , but had only been licensed to operate in Germany since January 1, 1998. In the same year, the company became a member of the compensation scheme for securities trading companies ( EdW ). In 2005 the company managed funds from 28,000 customers with a total volume of 750 million euros.
On the one hand, new customers were acquired by telephone for individual option transactions. They were promised high double-digit profits, but the risk of loss and costs were downplayed. After some legal disputes with dissatisfied customers, trade magazines such as B. Financial test in front of this system.
In addition, Phoenix mainly sold a collective product called Phoenix Managed Account through intermediaries , an alleged managed account that was advertised with the promise of around 10% constant annual return. However, this was not an approved investment fund (especially not a special fund), but turned out to be a pyramid scheme in which payments to old customers were made from new deposits. Genuine option deals were apparently only made in the early years. But when the investment strategy produced losses after a short time, Phoenix switched to complete air bookings and falsified accounts. The investments of the Phoenix Managed Account were actually supposed to be kept with a London broker, but accounts and account movements were partly purely fictitious. The letterheads with alleged balance confirmations from the broker were clumsy forgeries. As with the individual option transactions, there have been anomalies with the managed account for a long time - in 2000, the Federal Banking Supervisory Office (today's BaFin ) prohibited the company from investing customer funds from the managed accounts in collective accounts, but this was ignored by Phoenix. So far it is unclear why this did not result in any further consequences or tests.
In 2004 the company founder Breitkreuz died in a plane crash, which caused the pyramid scheme to collapse after a few months.
After the bankruptcy was opened in 2005, the BaFin determined the compensation case on March 15, 2005 - a basic requirement for investors to file claims with the EdW. In the further course of the proceedings against Phoenix Kapitaldienst GmbH , the managing director and the authorized signatory were arrested on suspicion of investment fraud.
Claims amounting to around 674 million euros were made to the company, but only around 30 percent of these can be met. After the creditors had approved an insolvency plan, the EdW planned to pay out around 200 million euros in the third quarter of 2007. However, this date has been postponed further into the future due to objections. In connection with the case of fraud, EdW had paid out compensation of EUR 238 million by February 10, 2012. At the beginning of January 2013, the EdW announced the completion of the compensation proceedings. In this context, a total of around 71,500 decisions with a total volume of around EUR 261 million were made.
Web links
- Homepage ( Memento from March 30, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
- Website with information about bankruptcy
- Information on the compensation event Phoenix Kapitaldienst GmbH, status of the proceedings at EdW
Footnotes
- ^ [1] Decision to open insolvency proceedings over the assets of Phoenix Kapitaldienst GmbH
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Lured by deceptive security, anlegerschutzarchiv.de, accessed on October 7, 2010
- ↑ Who we are, how we work ( Memento of February 8, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Stiftung Warentest: Phoenix Kapitaldienst GmbH - Overwhelming Risks , in: Finanztest, issue 01/2000 (accessed on January 3, 2013)
- ↑ http://www.test.de/Boersentermingeschaefte-Zweit-Chance-fuer-Phoenix-Anleger-1275010-2275010/
- ↑ Stiftung Warentest: Bafin stops Phoenix Capital Service - search for customer funds , in: test.de, March 10, 2005 (accessed on January 3, 2013)
- ↑ [2] Phoenix Kapitaldienst GmbH, finanztip.de, accessed on October 7, 2010
- ↑ [3] ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Managing director and authorized signatory of Phoenix Kapitaldienst GmbH arrested, gansel-rechtsanwaelte.de, accessed on October 7, 2010
- ↑ n-tv investors have to wait - Phoenix without ashes April 19, 2007
- ↑ Phoenix investors have to wait until 2015 , Handelsblatt.com, March 3, 2009
- ↑ Information on the Phoenix Kapitaldienst GmbH compensation case at www.edw.de
