Jean-Noel Alba, ex-deputy CEO of asset manager H2O, has been fined more than £1 million and banned from the financial services industry by the FCA.
Steve Smart, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said, “This ban and substantial fine should serve as a warning to others that if you mislead the FCA, you will face the consequences.”
Alba was found to have misled the FCA during an investigation into poor due diligence at H2O between April 2015 and November 2019.
The authority found that proper due diligence had not been carried out on high-risk, hard-to-sell investments related to German entrepreneur Lars Windhorst. By 2024, H2O was required to pay affected investors €250 million.
The FCA described the investments as “generally private placement debt instruments and equity shares in entities which H2O LLP recognised as early stage or turnaround businesses”.
During the investigation, the authority said, Alba provided false and misleading statements and documents – asking junior employees to create minutes from nonexistent meetings and retroactively producing due diligence documents.
Smart commented, “Senior leaders in financial services need to act with integrity. Mr Alba fell well short of those basic standards.
“He has no place in the industry.”
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