1. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) is facing claims worth around £2.55m for 12 investment and life & pensions firms newly declared in default – which would need to be paid for by investment adviser levy-payers.
2. The firms, which consists of seven investment intermediaries and five life and pension advisers, racked up a total of 102 claims.
3. The firm’s currently known claims amount to £771,000 from 35 investors, of which the FSCS has already settled 11 claims worth £95,000.
4. Among them was Merchant Capital, the structured products arm of Merchant House Group, which went into liquidation last year.
5. Merchant Capital, the structured products division of Merchant House Group, ran into trouble after its custodian, failed brokerage Pritchards Stockbrokers, was forced to stop trading by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for failing to adequately protect client money.
6. Pritchards was put into special administration in 2012 costing the FSCS an estimated £4m in compensation payments.
7. The adviser with the most claims against it was Robert Kenny Associates, an IFA which the FSCS pursued for Keydata claims believed to be worth around £23,000.
8. It has so far received a total of 29 claims currently valued at £870,000.

The firms on the FSCS list of defaults were:

1. Mirage Asset Management – claims: 4; estimated value: £30,000;
2. Johnson Gower Financial Planning – claims: 1; estimated value: £30,000;
3. Ian Brining & Associates – claims: 2; estimated value: £6,000;
4. Ian L Maclean – claims: 1; estimated value: £2,500;
5. TE Woodward & Co – claims: 1; estimated value: £2,500;
6. Aston Court Chambers – claims: 16; estimated value: £458,000;
7. Langmore James Associates – claims: 1; estimated value: £30,000;
8. PIFA Limited trading as Bluebond Investments – claims: 2; estimated value: £60,000;
9. Tawe Associates – claims: 4; estimated value: £90,000;
10. Radley Financial Consultancy – claims: 6; estimated value: £200,000;
11. Robert Kenny Associates – claims: 29; estimated value: £870,000
12. Merchant Capital – claims: 35; estimated value: £771,000.