FINRA December 2015 Disciplinary Actions: Part II
Wunderlich Securities, Inc. (Memphis, TN) submitted an AWC in which the firm was censured and fined $50,000. FINRA found that it failed to establish, maintain, and enforce an adequate supervisory system and written procedures regarding the preparation and dissemination of consolidated reports. The findings stated that although the firm’s WSPs expressly permitted the preparation and dissemination […]
Texas REIT Plummets Following Ponzi Allegations
Stock in United Development Funding IV has gone into a free fall following a report published on an investor website that alleged the real estate investment trust has operated for years like a Ponzi scheme. Harvest Exchange, an online professional network for investors, published an anonymous post about UDF called “A Texas-Sized Scheme: Exposing the […]
RCAP Shutting Down Wholesaling REIT Division After Fraud Charges, Drop In Sales
RCS Capital Corp. (“RCAP”) announced this week that it is closing its wholesaling brokerage division following a decline in sales of nontraded real estate investment trusts and allegations of fraud. The shutdown will result in the layoff of roughly 150 employees. Another 50, elsewhere in the company, will also lose their jobs. The company was […]
AR Capital Halts Creation Of New Nontraded REITs
AR Capital, the massive real estate investment trust sponsor established by Nicholas Schorsch, will cease creating and selling new alternative investment products. “As a result of regulatory and market uncertainty affecting capital raising for both new and existing offerings in the direct investment industry,” AR Capital will stop taking new investor funds for the programs […]
FINRA Fines Six IBDs For Failing To Discount Large REIT Sales
Voya Financial Advisors Inc., Transamerica Financial Advisors Inc. and four other independent broker-dealers failed to give clients appropriate discounts on large sales of nontraded real estate investment trusts and business development companies. In turn, FINRA fined the six over $500,000 combined. The fines comes as part of FINRA’s crackdown on firms not properly giving their customers […]
Former Broker, Robert K. Smith, Under Investigation
Robert Keith Smith, formerly a broker with Berthel Fisher, has been accused by more than ten of his clients throughout his career of overconcentrating their accounts in private placement securities, including equipment leasing programs, oil and gas investments, and non-traded real estate investment trusts. Smith started his career in 2000 with American General Securities and […]
LPL Financial Fined $11.7M For ‘Widespread Supervisory Failures’
FINRA ordered LPL Financial to pay $11.7 million in fines and restitution for what it called “widespread supervisory failures” pertaining to sales of complex products. According to the regulator authority, from 2007 to April 2015, LPL failed to adequately supervise sales of particular investments, such as exchange-traded funds, variable annuities, and nontraded real estate investment […]