Financial Planner Kerry Nelson, the director of Nexus Independent Financial Advisers Limited and Nexus Investment Managers Limited, and colleague Jacqueline Stephens, the firms’ business operations manager, have pleaded guilty to fraud after four clients lost £2m.
The pair admitted all charges brought by the FCA at Portsmouth Crown Court.
They admitted defrauding clients between January 2019 and January 2023 and using false documents as part of the fraud.
Ms Nelson has also admitted a money laundering offence after money was withdrawn from the firms which she used to fund an extravagant lifestyle.
Nexus was a significant South Coast-based Financial Planning and IFA firm with an investment arm.
Ms Nelson was a high-profile adviser and often quoted in the media and appearing on industry round tables as recently as 2022, the year before the firm failed.
In that year she won the Personality of the Year Award from industry publication Money Marketing and also won two Women in Financial Advice awards in the same year from another industry publication, Professional Adviser. The awards were for 'Woman of the Year - Investment' and 'Financial Adviser of the Year - South East.'
The FCA stepped in at Nexus at the start of 2023 after concerns about client money irregularities at the firm totalling £2m. The FCA said it intervened because of “very serious concerns.”
Therese Chambers, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “This was a serious breach of trust. Nelson and Stephens caused significant losses to clients who relied on them.
"We will continue to act where people exploit clients for their own gain.”
Ms Nelson and Ms Stephens will be sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court on 10 December. The FCA said it will seek confiscation proceedings to deprive Kerry Nelson of any financial benefit from her criminal conduct.
The FCA started criminal proceedings against Kerry Nelson and Jacqueline Stephens in February 2025.
Nexus IFA was declared in default by the FSCS in February this year. The watchdog said it believed that the firms’ sole director may have deducted sums from clients without authorisation or without FCA knowledge.
In its Supervisory Notice, the FCA said it appeared that the firms’ director may have taken a total of £2.072m in unauthorised and/or inappropriate withdrawals from clients of the firms. It said the conduct appeared to relate to multiple clients and to have spanned at least the period from September 2021 to December 2022.
Nexus was placed in administration on 26 January 2023 with Nicola Layland and Carl Faulds of Leonard Curtis Business Solutions Group appointed as the administrators.
Ms Nelson was declared bankrupt in November 2023 after Nexus fell into administration.