Special Administrator KPMG has issued a further update on the bankruptcy of retail forex broker Alpari UK, showing what it calls the Illustrative Financial Outcome for Alpari UK clients. Note that it has been more than 14 months since Alpari UK entered bankruptcy proceedings, following heavy losses the company took on the Swiss Franc spike of January 15, 2015.
KPMG confirmed that it indeed accounted for and recovered virtually all $98.2 million of client money at Alpari UK, including monies held at the four e-Wallet providers used by Alpari UK which were not subject to client money segregation rules. However KPMG also reported that it expects a shortfall of between $19.8 and $21.7 million, such that only between $76-$78 million is expected to be returned when all is said and done to ex Alpari UK clients.
To date (through to January 18), $49.9 million had already been returned.
So what happened to all the other money?
In one word – fees.
The largest individual fee of course belongs to KPMG itself, making up more than half of the overall total. KPMG expects that its Administrator fees will end up totaling between $9.8 and $11.4 million, depending on how much more work is necessary. Note that this is less that the $15 million we had early reported.
Legal fees of $2.4-$2.7 million, salaries paid to retained staff (all of whom were terminated as of last September 30) of $2.4 million, and infrastructure costs of $1.3-$1.5 million make up most of the rest.
In summary, it looks like Alpari UK clients will get back about 80 cents on the dollar from the Bankruptcy Estate. Those who had less than £50,000 in their accounts at Alpari UK should be able to get back most if not all of the rest from the FSCS.
The KPMG update report can be downloaded here.