The Financial Services Authority has fined Pi Financial £58,300 for unsuitable sales of high-risk products.
Between 1 January 2009 to 3 February 2012, the firm advised 168 clients to invest in UCIS (unregulated collective investment schemes) and 362 clients to invest £120m in structured products.
Of the sample of files the FSA reviewed, 50 per cent were found to be unsuitable.
The Shrewsbury-based firm had 72 investment advisers and 16 appointed representatives with only four file-checkers for all 72 advisers.
Unsuitable cases included a client being advised to invest all of his pension fund into a UCIS and a structured product and another client being advised to invest 93 per cent of his Sipp in structured products.

In August, the FSA proposed a ban on the sale of UCIS to retail investors after a review found three in four sales were unsuitable.
Georgina Philippou, head of retail enforcement at the FSA, said: "Pi's failing were serious. The firm sold UCIS and structured products to ordinary retail investors, when these products were clearly unsuitable for their needs.
"We have made our views on UCIS very clear in a series of communications, most recently in a our consultation paper and supervisory letters to firms active in this market. UCIS are very often high risk, complex products, which should not be promoted to the vast majority of retail investors in the UK.
"For years we have emphasised the need for suitable advice. Pi made personal recommendations that clearly did not fit its clients individual needs and circumstances."
The firm would have been fined £83,363 but agreed to settle at an early date, qualifying it for a 30 per cent discount.