Griff Rhys Jones slams wealth managers
Welsh comedian and author Griff Rhys Jones has launched an attack on wealth managers and fund managers after losing "a big sum of money" following the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers.
In an article published in The Times, he vented his anger at the "hopelessly greedy incompetents" who failed to inform him that he even had an exposure to Lehman. He had no idea until he telephoned the manager of his account.
Rhys Jones said: "I'm sorry, but we must blame the bankers....They were all involved in a sort of Ponzi scheme."
One wealth adviser commented: "Advisers are facing this kind of anger all the time. It is getting harder to recruit new advisers because no one wants to clear up the mess created by the slump." Rhys Jones' outburst follows criticism of the private banking industry by television celebrity Jeremy Clarkson. Sir Keith Mills, founder of Air Miles International has launched a legal campaign against Coutts & Co over the way they allegedly handled his cash: Coutts has rejected his criticism.
Rhys Jones did not say how much money he lost, but said that after he withdrew his money from the stock market in April last year and put it into cash, some of the money was put into Lehman Brother's custody account.
He said: "Lehman and my hedge fund have taken a significant wodge of this false money out of the fantasy market and put it in custody accounts (which I assume were better protected than mine). The bankers who bleat for their money are part of the whole network of artificially hyped inflation."
Lehman's brokerage business has now been taken over by Barclays, but Rhys Jones said his money had been lost. He pointed out that broking businesses will continue to take money as long as markets continue to trade: "They don't lose money like the mug punter, the pensioner, the saver or the depositer does. They slow down, that's all.
click through to read Griff Rhys Jones' letter
- Griff Rhys Jones' letter - Web link
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