The City regulator has handed down its largest fine on an individual after one of the country’s biggest investment scandals in which people were mis-sold £475 million-worth of “death bonds”.
The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Stewart Ford, the founder and chief executive of Keydata, the failed investment firm, £75 million after tens of thousands of people lost out as a result of the poor performance of the bonds — risky investment products based on buying unwanted life insurance policies and then waiting to collect the death benefit — that were mis-sold by the company. Keydata went bust in 2009.
Two other Keydata executives — Mark Owen, the former sales director, and Peter Johnson, the former compliance officer — were fined £4 million and £200,000,