Financial advisory firm City & Merchant Limited has entered liquidation, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has confirmed.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has also opened an investigation into the company and is accepting customer claims.

Dermot Coakley and Shaun Walker of WSM Marks Bloom LLP have been appointed as joint liquidators to wind up the firm for the benefit of its creditors.

City & Merchant is an FCA-authorised company that provided corporate finance advice, fund management and trading services.

In June 2024, the FCA placed restrictions on the firm to stop it from conducting any regulated activities.

The regulator put the restrictions on City & Merchant due to “serious concerns” that it was not capable of being authorised by the FCA following repeated failures to report all transactions it had executed since April 2023, and not being open and co-operative with the FCA on its transaction activity.

Furthermore, the firm had not submitted audited accounts for the year ending March 2023, and failing to notify the FCA of a notice by the registrar of companies to strike it from the Register of Companies.

The FSCS told anyone who believed they had a claim against City & Merchant that they can bring it to the service.

While the FSCS is accepting claims, they will not be immediately passed on to its claims processing teams for assessment as it will be investigating the firm to determine whether claims meet the qualifying conditions for compensation, and this “may take some time”.

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