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privacykilop · 2 years ago

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Fiu myaccounts

Its California Certificate of Authority number is 6992. TIAA-CREF Life Insurance Company is domiciled in New York, NY with its principal place of business in New York, NY. Its California Certificate of Authority number is 3092. Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America is domiciled in New York, NY, with its principal place of business in New York, NY. Each of the foregoing is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations. Annuity contracts and certificates are issued by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) and College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), New York, NY. TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services, LLC, Member FINRA, distributes securities products. Please consult your legal or tax advisor. The TIAA group of companies does not provide legal or tax advice. Annuity contracts and certificates are issued by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) and College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), New. ‡ Deposit and lending products and services are provided by TIAA Bank®, a division of TIAA, FSB. Each is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations. Investment decisions should be made based on the investor’s own objectives and circumstances.Īnnuity contracts and certificates are issued by Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) and College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), New York, NY. This material does not take into account any specific objectives or circumstances of any particular investor, or suggest any specific course of action. The use of Florida International Universitys information technology resources is contingent upon proper authorization. This material is for informational or educational purposes only and does not constitute fiduciary investment advice under ERISA, a securities recommendation under all securities laws, or an insurance product recommendation under state insurance laws or regulations. *Investment advice is available through TIAA using an advice methodology from Morningstar Investment Management, LLC. Investment, insurance and annuity products are not FDIC insured, are not bank guaranteed, are not deposits, are not insured by any federal government agency, are not a condition to any banking service or activity, and may lose value. TIAA Traditional is a guaranteed insurance contract and not an investment for federal securities law purposes. Any guarantees under annuities issued by TIAA are subject to TIAA's claims-paying ability.

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securitiesattorney · 3 years ago

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What Does a Securities Lawyer Do for Investors?

In addition, a securities lawyer can propose you on the commonplace symptoms of securities fraud or mismanagement of your investments and what to be watchful of as you invest. A securities attorney also can suggest you as to the many forms of claims which can be to be had to investors who suffer losses that are not resulting from ordinary marketplace forces, consisting of:

Breach of fiduciary obligation

Conflict of interest

Churning (excessive buying and selling to growth broker's expenses)

Failure to diversify

Failure to supervise

Ineptitude or malpractice

Insider records

Market manipulation

Misrepresentation

Omission of facts

Risky investments

Trading without permission

Unsuitability

Finally, a securities legal professional can constitute you in any litigation arising from your investments, to include a shareholder's by-product motion, a category movement match, or a match in opposition to your broker. Because many broker agreements comprise arbitration clauses, you'll be confined to your capability to pursue an movement against your dealer in courtroom. Because of this, it is a great concept to have a securities legal professional assessment and give an explanation for any dealer settlement with you before signing.

Securities legal professionals also regularly represent corporate customers inside the transactional paintings worried with preliminary public offerings, private sales of securities, issuance of stock or other securities and mergers and acquisitions. In this capability they also assist corporations in complying with securities laws and regulations which in the end serves to advantage purchasers.

At Sonn Law Group our South Florida-based securities legal professionals specialise in representing person traders who have suffered sizable economic damage due to misconduct or negligence at the part of their financial advisory company or their person funding advisor.

If you're right here because you’ve suffered losses and need to understand whether or not a securities attorney might be capable that will help you get better, please don’t hesitate to contact us the use of the fast shape beneath. We will listen to the information of your case and give you our high-quality assessment of your risk to get better losses.

What Does a Securities Lawyer Do?

A security is a trap-all time period that refers to just about any negotiable monetary tool. If you're an investor, you likely personal securities. Some of the most commonplace sorts of securities consist of:

Stocks;

Mutual funds;

Stock options and future alternatives;

Exchanged traded finances (ETFs);

Corporate bonds;

Municipal (authorities) bonds.

Despite being a completely not unusual funding device, securities are inherently complicated monetary merchandise. In truth, some securities are so complex that even monetary specialists do no longer absolutely recognize them.

As such, traders who buy securities are frequently compelled to depend upon the guidance, pointers, and professional competencies in their dealer and brokerage company. The experts have a obligation to correctly appearance out in your pastimes. Unfortunately, in some distance too many instances, expert agents fail to stay as much as their prison duties.

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oliversansom811 · 2 years ago

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For all the financial investors and advisors, the past year has been a rough ride. Unfortunately, we all had to deal with deteriorating asset prices, record inflation, skyrocketing rents, and concerns of the impeding recession followed by the pandemic led many experts to rethink on the aspects of financial planning

#fiduciary financial advisor florida

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perfectirishgifts · 4 years ago

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3 Things All 401(k) Plan Sponsors Share No Matter The Size Of The Firm

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/3-things-all-401k-plan-sponsors-share-no-matter-the-size-of-the-firm-2/

3 Things All 401(k) Plan Sponsors Share No Matter The Size Of The Firm

Retirement plans come in all shapes and sizes. You may think your plan is too big (or too small) to share the same concerns with smaller (or larger) plans. It turns out, however, there’s a lot in common between really large and really little 401(k) plans.

This is not to say there aren’t differences between big and small companies when it comes to their 401(k) plans. For one thing, smaller companies don’t have the same staffing capacity. This puts a squeeze on their ability to address critical matters as ERISA places similar requirements on all plans, no matter what their size.

So, yes, small company sponsored plans do have a substantial issue that their larger brethren do not. “They are not able to spend the appropriate amount of time on the plan given their limited resources,” says Preston Traverse, Partner-Mid Market Solutions Leader at Mercer in Boston.

While you don’t want to understate this difference, it becomes more significant when you realize the Department of Labor won’t necessarily give them a pass just because they’re short-handed. It is therefore all the more important to understand how large and small 401(k) plans overlap.

Here are three critical concerns all 401(k) plan sponsors have:

Fiduciary Duties and Liability

As mentioned, ERISA rules all plans. This means, if you sponsor a plan, you are a fiduciary. There are duties and obligations that go along with that. “The fact is,” says Traverse, “401(k) plan sponsors have the same fiduciary and other responsibilities, irrespective of their size.”

This is the primary advantage large companies have over smaller ones: they can hire staff to handle the workload associated with the plan. This includes monitoring the plan service providers. Executives in smaller companies have to complete the same tasks. They just don’t have the help.

“Oversight and maintenance of the plan is always a concern no matter the size,” says Jason Field, Financial Advisor, CFP, Van Leeuwen & Company, located in Princeton, New Jersey. “Making sure all fiduciary duties are fulfilled by the proper parties as well as compliance and reporting are all key concerns that have to be addressed at least annually.”

Costs & Fees

Unlike fiduciary responsibilities, where there are no compromises, some leeway exists when it comes to costs and fees. It’s clearly acknowledged that larger plans have the benefit of economies of scale. They possess the raw bulk to negotiate more favorable fee rates.

Still, on the margin, costs and fees remain an issue for both large and small plans, if only on a relative basis rather than an absolute one.

“No matter the size of the plan, large or small, cost is always a key concern,” says Josh Simpson, a financial adviser with Lake Advisory Group in Lady Lake, Florida. “The larger a plan, the more likely it is that a larger company will want to manage the plan giving the sponsor more leverage to negotiate more favorable terms. But even small plans can negotiate their rates and attempt to play multiple money managers against each other to reduce their fees.”

Education & Communication

The company sponsored 401(k) represents the ultimate in logistics. Think of all the different moving parts and players. Vital to the success of any such operation are open and reliable communication lines. These messaging systems provide two important pieces to the ongoing puzzle that many employees see as their 401(k) plan: updates and instructions.

“The most critical concern for small plans that is the same as large plans is the overall education and communication of the plan specifics to participants,” says Nicholas Tzoumas, President of ClearscopeHR based in New York City. “All plan sponsors, regardless of size, have a fiduciary duty to communicate plan eligibility and features to participants so they can make proper decisions.”

Central to this information is education. You can break down education into two objectives. The first involves getting the participant up to speed with all the bells and whistles the plan offers.

Simpson has spoken with many plan sponsors who tell him they are concerned about “education for enrollees in the plan.” He says, “They want to make sure that someone will show up at least once per quarter to answer any questions their employees may have and help to explain the benefits of the plan to employees who may not be enrolled yet.”

The second aspect of education, and one that increasingly takes up the bulk of the education process, deals with providing plan participants with a basic knowledge and understanding of financial literacy.

“Plan sponsors seek to improve the financial wellness of their employees,” says Paul Swanson, Vice President of Intermediary Distribution at CUNA Mutual Retirement Solutions in Madison, Wisconsin. “Middle- and lower-income workers are not adequately preparing for retirement and have other financial stresses such as student loan debt, child care, education savings, caring for elderly parents, living paycheck to paycheck, etc. Financially stressed employees are less productive. This is a universal problem. It’s not unique to plan or company size.”

Indeed, a survey from Lincoln Financial Group SBFG showed that 31% of small business owners offer retirement benefits to prepare employees for the future, while 28% say it’s to retain existing employees.

Sharon Scanlon, Senior Vice President at the Lincoln Financial Group in North Reading, Massachusetts, says, “Both small and large plan sponsors are focused on the well-being of their employees. One major way that retirement plan sponsors can help support the overall financial wellness of their employees is to make it easy for them to get a holistic picture of their finances, and to provide solutions that make it easy for participants to save more—whether that’s through an easy-to-navigate, mobile optimized website or by connecting one-on-one with someone to learn more about their retirement plan.”

While you might be tempted to believe large and small 401(k) plans cannot possibly have similar concerns, the more you look into them, the more alike they seem.

And this common ground might offer innovative solutions where you least expect to find them.

More from Retirement in Perfectirishgifts

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mannawealthmanagement · 1 year ago

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triangle2828 · 7 years ago

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Morgan Stanley faces a $35 million charge after wealth advisors were found to have engaged in fraud and breached fiduciary duty to an elderly client, according to an arbitration panel appointed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Lawyers for Lynnda Speer, widow of Home Shopping Network co-founder Roy Speer, said Florida Morgan Stanley wealth advisors Terry McCoy and Ami Forte were responsible for unauthorized trades on Roy Speer's account. A FINRA panel on Monday determined that McCoy and Forte were guilty of elder exploitation, breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud, negligence and negligent supervision. Learn more.

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medicarevideos · 5 years ago

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Medicare Enrollment

For FREE help finding a Medicare plan, Click here or call 1-800-729-9590.

#Medicare #Enrollment is underway! Gary Abely, CFP®, AIF®, CPA discusses your Medicare enrollment options on Fox 35 Orlando. The enrollment deadline is December 7, 2018.

Gary Abely, CFP®, AIF®, CPA has been a financial planning professional since 1990. He is a Certified Financial Planner

(CFP®) professional and an Accredited Investment Fiduciary® (AIF®). He is also a Certified Public Accountant and an Investment Advisory Representative of Certified Advisory Corp, a Registered Investment Advisor.

Gary graduated Summa Cum Laude from Arizona State University in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. He became a CPA in 1988 and a CFP® professional in 1995. After working for the CPA firm, Arthur Andersen & Co., out of college, Gary opened a private financial planning and accounting firm in 1990.

As a graduate of the AIF® program, Gary is specially trained in investment fiduciary responsibility and portfolio management. He offers three services to individual and business clients: Asset Management, ERISA 3(38) investment management services for 401(k) and other retirement plans, and general financial planning to individuals and couples.

He is keen on explaining to his clients, “It’s not what you make, but what you keep that matters”, emphasizing tax efficient portfolio asset allocation strategies.

Gary also holds a Life and Health Insurance and Variable Annuities license with the State of Florida.

Having grown up in Winter Park, Florida, Gary is married with twin daughters and resides in Maitland, Florida.

Disclaimer: Fee-Based Planning and Asset Management through Certified Advisory Corp, an SEC-Registered Investment Advisory Firm.

SEC registration does not constitute an endorsement of the firm. Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification mark CFP®.

This website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a complete description of our services. This website is not a solicitation or offer to sell securities or investment advisory services.

Visit the Company Website for Certified Financial Group, Inc to review the following information:

-States where are our various member firms are registered in to offer Securities.

-Web Disclosures

-Business Continuity Plan

-Code of Ethics

-Privacy Statement

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corewealthmanagement · 7 years ago

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We are pleased to announce that as part of our commitment to provide timely and relevant information, Core Wealth Management has launched a video series, “In Your Corner.” We invite you to take a look…

#feeonly #napfa #feeonlyfinancialadvisor #wealthmanagement #fiduciary #in your corner #fee only financial advisor #South Florida

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walterfrodriguez · 4 years ago

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Submerged in securities: Many CMBS hospitality loans may be underwater soon

Hotel operators trek into special servicing and it may take years before they get out (iStock)

Carlos Rodriguez Sr. set off from Costa Rica nearly 25 years ago for what seemed like a surefire bet: developing and operating hotels in Florida, where both tourism and business travel were in perpetual demand due to the area’s warm weather, white sand beaches and proximity to Latin America.

Carlos Rodriguez Sr., Driftwood Capital and Driftwood Hospitality Management

Rodriguez, who oversees the hotel investment and management companies Driftwood Capital and Driftwood Hospitality Management — which have a combined portfolio pegged at about $3 billion — steadily grew his businesses around the country over the years by acquiring 21 and managing 70 hotels.

“We are losing money hand over fist. We lost millions of dollars.”

Carlos Rodriguez Sr., Driftwood Capital

But as the pandemic drove U.S. occupancy levels to near record lows in recent months, Rodriguez said his company has stopped paying dividends to investors and believes he will just break even by the end of 2021.

“We are losing money hand over fist. We lost millions of dollars,” he told The Real Deal. “We are in a position to withstand it, but it’s a painful hit.”

The hotel industry has since seen a gradual uptick in occupancy levels in recent weeks. And Rodriguez said his companies are still well capitalized, noting that he recently raised $250 million from investors for new hotel deals and that he’s also looking to acquire distressed assets.

But the country’s hotel industry, as a whole, continues to take a beating. For Driftwood and other operators, Covid-19 and the country’s growing economic uncertainty have weighed heavily on revenues. In addition to the high costs of running a hotel, paying staffers and making sure all property taxes are covered, keeping up with regular debt payments has become equally concerning.

In particular, hotel and retail owners are scratching their heads to figure out how to best manage debt payments on commercial mortgage-backed securities.

What was seen as a cheap and easy way to secure non-recourse financing just a few years ago now faces a reckoning as hotel borrowers are exposed to more than $85 billion in outstanding CMBS debt, the research firm Trepp reported in March.

The complicated structure of these loans, which are pooled together and sold to investors in so-called tranches, has left some borrowers struggling to make ends meet. The delinquency rate for all CMBS loans jumped to 7.2 percent last month from 2.3 percent in April, the largest spike in delinquencies since 2009, data from Trepp shows.

And unlike conventional loans from a bank that can be reworked and restructured, CMBS loans have to go through a sometimes lengthy process through a third party entity known as a special servicer in order to be modified. Already, $32 billion of loans on commercial properties were in special servicing as of May, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Insiders say the fraught servicing process could leave some borrowers in a blackhole — with high debt installments and additional fees that could take months, and in some cases, years to pay off — before they are able to regain control of their properties.

Debra Morgan, BlackEagle Real Estate Partners

“If you are asking for a material modification to the loan, it might take six months to receive approval, or it might take much longer,” said Debra Morgan of BlackEagle Real Estate Partners, a commercial real estate firm that works with CMBS investors and servicers. “Servicers have stakeholders to answer to and extensive contracts and procedures to follow.”

Swamped servicers

Rodriguez said part of his issue with navigating the CMBS market is simply getting someone who’s working on the loan to pick up the phone.

“First issue here is getting someone to answer your request,” Rodriguez said. He added that special servicers are not adequately staffed “to handle the flood of people requesting forbearance.”

The country’s largest special servicer, Midland Loan Services, managed a portfolio of $177.7 billion in CMBS loans at the start of last year with a staff of just 26 employees, according to figures from S&P Global Ratings. Rialto Capital Advisors, the country’s second-largest CMBS servicer, meanwhile, had a staff of 56 as of mid-2018. That was roughly half the number the firm had at the end of 2014.

Ann Hambly, 1st Service Solutions

Servicers “are going to get overwhelmed very quickly,” said Ann Hambly, CEO of Texas-based 1st Service Solutions, which provides advisory services for CMBS borrowers.

Not only are many of them swamped with calls, but unlike lenders who have a fiduciary duty to work with borrowers, CMBS special servicers are only obligated to help the bondholders and mitigate losses. This structure can lead to servicers to take in more fees the longer the loan is in special servicing.

“They make money the longer you are in there,” Hambly said. “They are not incentivized to do a quick resolution.”

The inherent nature of CMBS presents risks to borrowers, according to several industry sources. In some cases, for example, special servicers will reduce commercial rents to lower costs rather than to make actual upgrades to the property or the building.

“To reduce servicing advances, servicers may exchange rent or offer lease concessions in lieu of funding significant tenant improvements for office and retail,” said Morgan of BlackEagle Real Estate Partners.

The rules for securitized commercial mortgages are also problematic for some borrowers at a time when the federal government is releasing loan programs to help businesses during the pandemic.

For one, CMBS borrowers can not take on any additional unsecured debt, which could include loans under the federal Paycheck Protection Program. This means that a special servicer could potentially take over property with CMBS debt for accepting a PPP loan if it does not first get approval from the servicer.

“It would be a further indebtedness, and it could open up to bad boy carve-outs,” said Lee Mackson, a creditors’ rights attorney with Shutts & Bowen in Miami in reference to certain loan provisions, which, if violated, allows the loan to become recourse against the borrower.

Suzanne Amaducci-Adams, a partner at the law firm Bilzin Sumberg in Miami who represents special servicers and CMBS borrowers, said “CMBS loans specifically prohibit additional secured debt.”

“So any new loan that has security is going to be problematic because you will have two creditors fighting over the same collateral if there is a loan default,” said Amaducci-Adams

High exposure

The CMBS market exploded in popularity in 2007 as U.S. property values rose to all-time highs, but the market came to a near halt during the great financial crisis.

“I think the New York [hotel market] is going to take four to six years to recover.”

Andrew Broad, Avison Young

Lenders, borrowers and investors eventually returned to the space after the recession as property values recovered and borrowers sought out the CMBS market since the loans were offered at lower rates and oftentimes easier to obtain than traditional bank financing.

CMBS deals are typically bundled together in pools of mortgages backing one or more commercial properties. The mortgages are then transferred to a trust which sells the mortgages to investors as bonds. The bonds are sliced into different asset classes based on their credit risk — the lower the class, the greater the risk for investors.

During good times, this agreement with the bondholders is generally not a concern for CMBS bondholders as long as the borrower makes regular payments. But experts now project a wave of defaults, and many properties backed by CMBS debt could be taken over by loan servicers.

For example, a growing number of retailers are in dire straits as Neiman Marcus, JCPenney, J. Crew and other major stores file for bankruptcy. At the same time, the retail industry lost 2.1 million jobs in April before seeing some much-needed gains in May, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hotels are perhaps in even worse shape. Nationwide, hotel occupancy stood at just 36.6 percent for the week ending May 30, according to the industry data firm STR.

Andrew Broad and Rick George, Avison Young

And occupancy could be much worse since these numbers do not account for hotels that have shut down due to Covid-19, and many hotels may be underreporting, according to Andrew Broad and Rick George, hospitality brokers at Avison Young.

They estimated that there are 4,500 U.S. hotel assets backed by CMBS debt and the average annual operating loss on a 120-key limited service hotel will be $500,000. The brokers also projected that it will take the average hotel one year just to break even.

“I think the New York [hotel market] is going to take four to six years to recover,” said Broad.

No love from the Fed?

Industry groups and some private equity firms like Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital have been advocating for more relief from the government to asset backed securities as the group faces a $3.2 billion default on its hotel portfolio.

But in late March, the Federal Reserve said it would only guarantee relief for Triple A CMBS securities — the highest tier for investors — through its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (the central bank launched the stimulus program in November 2008 to help spur lending to small business and consumers)

The Fed also excluded single-asset, single-borrower CMBS transactions from TALF, which account for nearly half of all CMBS issuance in 2019, a figure pegged at $98 billion, according to the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council.

Lisa Pendergast, CREFC

Lisa Pendergast, CREFC’s executive director, said the lack of backing from the Fed will cause mortgage rates to increase on new loans, making the availability of financing for borrowers more scarce.

“Conservative or not, you can’t underwrite assets with no current income and little insight as to what that income will look like once it does materialize,” she said.

One single-asset, single-borrower deal includes a nearly $1 billion CMBS loan backed by the hotel where James Bond first met Auric Goldfinger in the movie Goldfinger, the Fontainebleau Miami Beach. The property’s loan went into special servicing in late March and the development group led by Jeff Soffer is asking its servicer for forbearance on payments due to cash flow concerns, according to Trepp.

Brett Mufson, Fontainebleau Development

Brett Mufson, president of Fontainebleau Development in Miami, stressed that the property has not defaulted on any of its payments.

“We view all our lenders as partners and now more than ever it’s important to work hand-in-hand to ensure a smooth transition back to normalcy,” Mufson told TRD.

History repeats

Borrower and lender attitudes could dampen going forward, due to rising fees and the cumbersome process of reworking CMBS loans, sources say.

It could be especially difficult for smaller hotel owners to get financing in markets where there are fewer lending options.

Sam Chandan, NYU

“If a CMBS lender is not active in a particular market, that can have a significant impact on liquidity,” said Sam Chandan, an economist and dean of NYU’s Schack Institute of Real Estate.

During the last financial crisis, CMBS issuance fell from $229 billion in 2007 to just $3 billion in 2009, Chandan noted in a 2012 research report. Issuance later rose to more than $97 billion in 2019, according to Trepp.

Given the broader economic impacts of the pandemic, hotel and retail borrowers may feel the process is too difficult and turn to other sources of financing, said Hambly of 1st Service Solutions, though in some cases it’s cyclical.

During the last recession, many borrowers said they will never return the CMBS market, which bounced back within a few years, she noted.

“We saw it in the 2008 downturn when people said I am never doing that again,” Hambly said. “It’s almost like childbirth [where] every woman says I am never going to do that again. You kind of forget the pain.”

The post Submerged in securities: Many CMBS hospitality loans may be underwater soon appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

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mikednolan · 6 years ago

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Advisor Christopher Bennett Alleged to Have Recommended Unsuitable Energy Securities

According to BrokerCheck records financial advisor Christopher Bennett (Bennett), formerly employed by J.J.B. Hilliard, W.L. Lyons, LLC (JJB Hilliard), has been subject to at least thirteen customer complaints and one regulatory action during the course of his career. According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Bennett has been accused by multiple customers of unsuitable investment advice concerning various investment products including energy stocks most likely including master limited partnerships (MLPs). The law offices of Gana Weinstein LLP continue to report on investor related losses and potential legal remedies due to recommendations to investor in oil and gas and commodities related investments.

In February 2019 Bennett was sanctioned by FINRA after the regulator made allegations that Bennett consented to the sanctions and findings that he exercised discretionary trading authority in the accounts of several customers without written authorization from the customers and without obtaining his member firm’s prior written acceptance of the accounts as discretionary.

In February 2019 a customer filed a complaint alleging that Bennett violated the securities laws including the Securities Act of Kentucky, breach of fiduciary duty, and unsuitable investment recommendations causing $139,214 in damages. The claim is currently pending.

Our firm handles claims and is also investigating securities claims against brokerage firms over sales practices related to the recommendations of oil & gas and commodities products such as exchange traded notes (ETNs), structured notes, private placements, master limited partnerships (MLPs), leveraged ETFs, mutual funds, and individual stocks.

Before recommending investments in oil and gas and commodities related investments, brokers and advisors must ensure that the investment is appropriate for the investor and conduct due diligence on the company in order to understand the risks and prospects of the company. Oil and gas and commodities related investments have been recommended by brokers under the assumption that commodities prices would continue to go up. However, brokers who sell oil and gas and commodities products are obligated to understand the risks of these investments and convey them to clients.

The number of complaints against Bennett is unusual compared to his peers. According to newsources, only about 7.3% of financial advisors have any type of disclosure event on their records among brokers employed from 2005 to 2015. Brokers must publicly disclose reportable events on their CRD customer complaints, IRS tax liens, judgments, investigations, and even criminal matters. However, studies have found that there are fraud hotspots such as certain parts of California, New York or Florida, where the rates of disclosure can reach 18% or higher. Moreover, according to the New York Times, BrokerCheck may be becoming increasing inaccurate and understate broker misconduct as studies have shown that 96.9% of broker requests to clean their records of complaints are granted.

Bennett entered the securities industry in 1995. From 1995 until October 2018 Bennett was associated with JJB Hilliard out of the firm’s Louisville, Kentucky office location.

At Gana Weinstein LLP, our attorneys are experienced representing investors who have suffered securities losses due to inappropriate investments in oil and gas related securities. Investors who have suffered losses are encouraged to contact us at (800) 810-4262 for consultation. Claims may be brought in securities arbitration before FINRA. Our consultations are free of charge and the firm is only compensated if you recover.

from Securities Fraud https://www.securitieslawyersblog.com/advisor-christopher-bennett-alleged-to-have-recommended-unsuitable-energy-securities/

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oliversansom811 · 2 years ago

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The term "investment advisor" is used to describe a financial professional who is licensed to provide advice on investments and financial planning.

#best investment advisors fl #top certified financial planners #fiduciary financial advisor florida

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growlegalweed-blog · 6 years ago

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Legal Weed Resources

Check out... https://legalweed.gq/420/cpa-firm-cannabis-perception/

CPA Firm – Cannabis Perception

If you wish to re-publish this story please do so with following accreditation

AUTHOR: “Jordan Zoot. “aBIZinaBOX Inc., CPA’s”

PUBLISHER: CANNABIS LAW REPORT

Cannabis CPA

CPA Firm – Cannabis Perception – just when you think the world has changed, it can still kick you in the chops. We lost a client this weekend specifically due to concerns of investor perception of our being involved with the legal cannabis industry in California.

We will get into the details in a moment…suffice it to say that the loss of any client is a disappointment.

When the client is mid-five figures in annual fees, they are not insignificant to our practice, the fees from our cannabis industry clients dwarf it.

The issue that is almost unfathomable will become clear. The concern came about with our transition to the QBO Platform and the need to connect a new Accountant User. Let’s start with the client’s response to our request.

Hi Jordan: apologies for the delay but had been traveling. quite frankly, I think we might have an issue here.

While I have absolutely zero personal concerns, I don’t believe we can represent our accountants to our investors with such a descriptive link [the reference is to an email address on the “aBIZinaBOXcannabis.com” domain to the cannabis industry. this is purely a reflection of our investors and relationship as fiduciary on the various investment vehicles and connection to the [redacted] space. happy to hop on a call to discuss.

When I read the message, I wrote a detailed response which

The firm’s legal name is aBIZinaBOX Inc,

The firm maintains two distinct websites – abizinabox.com and abizinaboxcannabis.com, the first being general website, and second being the cannabis industry site. We made a decision to separate the two both out of a similar concern with respect to the very different needs of the cannabis industry and on a protective level out of concern with respect to what then AG Sessions was going to do in attacking the cannabis industry.

Our primary domain is abizinabox.com, and that is the one that we use for email and the overall operation of the practice.

We had to make an urgent transition for cybersecurity protective reasons, which included transitioning > xxx entities from Xero to QBOnline…five of my people working on that for an entire week.

The additional complexity is that there are numerous connections across domains, such as Intuit ProAdvisor Certification that required a manual transition. We used the abiizinaboxcannabis.com domain in a transitory capacity…and have completed the transition.

As such, the Accountant User connection request should now be sent to [email protected]

If you or one of your investors ever had reason to contact us, or would receive a communication from us, it would be to or from the abizinabox.com domain.

Having said that, if someone searches my name, they will certainly see a strong tie to the cannabis industry in California, which is the only state that has clients in the cannabis industry where it has been legal for > 25 years.

We have been very successful with the cannabis industry to a point where it is now > 50% or our net collected fees.

However, I have been in practice for 38 years and spent the majority of that time doing other things.

So…my view of the QBOnline situation is me and three other employees of this firm have QB ProAdvisor Advanced Certification on the platform, and the firm has Elite Partner status which is the highest tier that Intuit Offers.

If anyone has a question about primary credentials for myself, they are right here from cpaverify.com

The firm’s primary license in Illinois is held by one of our QSSS subsidiaries named Jordan S. Zoot, CPA, P.C.

That QSSS is also licensed in Florida

The firm’s California license is held by abizinabox Inc.

There you have the details as to our firm name and licenses which don’t mention the word cannabis. The reality is that cannabis a substantial part of our practice…and it is a completely legal industry everywhere we engage with it. We don’t touch plants, and our business is the provision of the services that a licensed firm of certified public accountants performs. We don’t try to hide our involvement. We both know that the internet makes all of this information available to anyone that knows to search.

We have a number of clients that might have the same sensitivity that you articulated, yet none of them that know us have expressed concern. It would be just about impossible to hide our involvement in the industry, and just so you are aware, my visibility with the industry is rather significant. See https://cannabislaw.report/category/jordan-zoot/ or https://www.greenmarketreport.com/its-tax-time-choosing-cannabis-tax-advisors/.

I would add that major financial services providers that have significant presence in the education space, such as AON Insurance Brokerage are moving into the space https://www.greenmarketreport.com/aon-takes-the-risk-on-cannabis/ …and keep in mind, in New York State, cannabis is medicine, not recreational at this point…and in that context I don’t view it as any different than a pharmaceutical company such as Pfizer or Merck.

Succinctly, the Accountant User connection can be sent to [email protected]. If there is still something to discuss, let me know.

I had expectations that the detailed explanation would put the issue to rest.

Well…SHOCKER…four hours later, the response we got was one sentence.

Thanks, Jordan. Really appreciate your expertise and working with you but it is best to go our separate ways. Thank you.

We are going to leave it to our readers to draw their own conclusions with respect to whether our association with the cannabis industry was the root cause or just “good cover” for something else.

However, it does hammer on the very real issue that for professional such as CPA and law firms, the perception, of “stigma” if you will isn’t entirely dead.

CPA Firm – Cannabis Perception

#Cannabis #firm #Perception

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sofiadnobleus · 6 years ago

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#FASuccess Ep 116: Building A Consumer Media And Author Presence To Gain Credibility As A “Small” Independent Advisor, With Harold Evensky

Welcome back to the 116th episode of Financial Advisor Success Podcast!

My guest on today’s podcast is Harold Evensky. Harold is the co-founder and chairman of Evensky & Katz / Foldes Financial, an independent RIA in South Florida that oversees nearly $3 billion in assets under management.

What’s unique about Harold, though, is that he was one of the early pioneers to financial planning under the RIA model all the way back in the 1980s, and taking a holistic goals-based wealth management approach to portfolio design in the 1990s, having literally written the book on it 22 years ago in 1997.

In this episode, we talk in depth about what it was like to start an RIA in the early days of the independent advisor movement before platforms like Schwab Advisor Services even existed. The way Harold hustled with seminar marketing up to six nights a week in the early days just to get clients and survive, how Harold engaged early on with the media as a means to establish credibility for the firm in its efforts to compete against mega-wirehouses of the time, and how becoming fee-only in the early 1990s helped the firm to differentiate itself, because back then, being a fee-only fiduciary actually was a niche.

We also talk about how the firm grew and evolved over time. What it was like to transition from an advisory practice to a business, how Harold thought through the process of introducing next-generation partners and beginning to relinquish control of the firm, the way Evensky and Katz instituted a formal management committee to separate management and ownership of the firm as the number of partners proliferated, and how the firm made an all-in bet on the shift from AUM fees to retainer fees, and then unwound the entire change and went back to charging AUM fees for wealth management less than three years later.

And be certain to listen to the end, where Harold talks about the evolution of the financial planning profession. The CFP Lite controversy of the 1990s, whether the CFP Board and FPA have lived up to their expectations, and what it will really take for financial planning to truly be recognized as a profession by the public.

So whether you’re interested in hearing about what it was like breaking away from the brokerage world when an AUM structure was still a novel idea, how the financial planning profession has evolved over the past few decades, and where it may be headed, then we how you enjoy this episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast.