Private Placement

Conservation Easements, Land Easements, They’re Trouble for Investors and the Advisors who Sold Them!

May 7, 2021 | by Joe Wojciechowski

Chicago-based Stoltmann Law Offices, P.C. offers contingency fee representation to investors nationwide who have been hit by the IRS for tax issues related to conservation or land easement investments sold by investment and financial advisors. High-income investors are lured into investing in these products based on the promise of legal tax savings. Through a complicated and circuitous waterfall, investors in conservation or land easements, can receive income tax breaks sometimes worth several times the amount of their actual investment. As the old adage goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

A recent article by Investment News lifted the lid on three specific easements that resulted in an arbitration complaint by the investors, and includes an unsavory connection to motivational speaker Tony Robbins. The easements at issue in the investor complaint are:

GWM Capital Real Estate

Tax Fraud Issues at Center of Looming Conservation Easement Investment Disaster.

March 19, 2021 | by Joe Wojciechowski

Stoltmann Law Offices, P.C. is a Chicago-based investor rights law firm that offers nationwide representation to investors who suffer investment losses as a result of unscrupulous, negligent, or fraudulent misconduct of financial advisors. In a tale as old as time, people prefer to avoid paying taxes if they can do so legally. The legality of tax breaks can be a touchy and constantly developing subject. An increasingly popular way for very wealthy land owners to generate massive tax write-offs is called the “conservation easement.” Simply put, in exchange for promising not to develop land, in the name of conservation, a land owner promises not to develop the tract. By doing so, the value of the property depreciates – because it cannot be developed – and theoretically, the owner of the land gives up something of value – the right to develop and exploit the land. The land owner then gets a tax deduction, which depends on two critically important factors: 1) the value of the property before the easement; and 2) the value after the easement. The spread between these two numbers is then used as a tax deduction.

And there is where the fraud begins, according to the IRS. Recent report published by Bloombergtax describes the increasing aggression with which the IRS and Department of Justice are prosecuting conservation easement transactions as crimes. One very notable transaction being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office involves former President, Donald Trump, and an approximate $25 million tax break he received in connection with a conservation easement on land he owned in upstate New York. The tax scam begins with the appraisal of the land at values exponentially higher than reality, to appraisals after the easement well-below reality. That increases the spread – the tax loss – taken by the owner. These appraisals are done by professional outfits with attorneys and appraisers who sign off on all of these deals, and who can find themselves in a serious lurch with authorities.

These conservation easements became increasingly complex over time, involving massive tracts of land and found themselves being marketed and sold by FINRA registered broker/dealers as Regulation D private placement investments. The purpose of this scenario for investors is the tax break for the land owners trickles-down, through a series of complicated trusts and transactions, to the investor. Sometimes investors get upwards of 10X their investment back in the form of a tax write off. Usually, the write-off is for between 2X and 6X the investment. For example, if an investor puts $25K into a conservation easement offering 4X reduction, that investor can write-off $100,000 in income for tax purposes the next year. For high income investors, that is a dream scenario.

UPDATE – Arizona Corporation Commission Files Complaint Against Scott Wayne Reed for Selling-Away at Wells Fargo in Pebblekick, Inc.

December 16, 2020 | by Deanna Besbekos-LaPage

Stoltmann Law Offices previously posted about Scott Wayne Reed, former broker at Wells Fargo Advisors, selling away to his customers, including customers of Wells Fargo. On December 15, 2020, the Arizona Corporation Commission filed a “Notice of Opportunity for Hearing Regarding Proposed Order to Cease and Desist, Order for Restitution, Order for Administrative Penalties, Order for Revocation and Order for Other Affirmative Action” against Reed, his wife, Sarah Reed, Pebblekick, Inc. and Don K. Shiroishi, the Chief Executive Officer and President of Pebblekick.

According to the ACC’s notice, Mr. Reed sold at least $3.5 million of investments in short-term, high-interest notes issued by Pebblekick. Mr. Reed sold these notes as offering an annualized rate of return of sixty-percent (60%). In turn, Pebblekick paid at least $191,340 to Reed. He sold these notes to clients as “100% safe” investments and represented that he also invested in Pebblekick. He went as far as personally guaranteeing $100,000 of the $200,000 investment made by one investor.Reed also sold other outside investment to customers, which he alleged were connected to Pebblekick, including but not limited to Precision Surgical, Mako Studio, and Ascensive Creator.

Reed was a registered representative of Wells Fargo Advisors at the time that he sold this investment, but did not disclose that he was selling notes in Pebblekick or that he received nearly $200,000 in commissions and fees for selling Pebblekick. According to the ACC, “when Reed’s firm reported him for potentially selling away and the Securities Division requested Reed to provide information and documents concerning the allegation, Reed impeded the Division’s investigation by providing responses that were false, incomplete, and misleading.”

Victims of Scott Wayne Reed’s Selling-Away and Speculative Private Placement Investments

October 1, 2020 | by Deanna Besbekos-LaPage

Scott Wayne Reed (“Agent Reed”), of Scottsdale, Arizona, has been engaging in various misconduct in customer accounts for years now. Most recently, earlier this year a Wells Fargo customer alleged that Agent Reed solicited him to invest in “an investment opportunity in a company not offered by Wells Fargo Advisors”, Reed broker-dealer at the time. Upon information and belief, Reed tried to solicit several customers to invest in outside business activities sponsored by Hollywood producers. This “selling away” activity led to Reed’s departure from Wells Fargo on April 7, 2020.

Several of Agent Reed’s customers have complained that he sold them unsuitable investments in private placements, oil and gas investments, hedge funds, and mutual funds and over-concentrated their accounts in private placements. In 2017, elderly clients of Reed filed a complaint against Reed’s previous brokerage firms, Accelerated Capital Group (“ACG”) which is now out of business, and Coastal Equities, and later adding him personally to the complaint, for selling them several unsuitable investments. Included in these investments were various Staffing 360 issuances, Aeon Multi-Opportunity Fund, which became Kadmon, and Aequitas, which ended up being a Ponzi scheme. The clients lost their entire investment in Aequitas. They lost between 92% to 99% of their investments in Staffing 360 and lost 70% of their investments in Aeon/Kadmon. Reed sold these investments to his clients even after there were red flags that these companies were completely failing and drowning in debt.

Agent Reed has bounced around several brokerage firms, and has also worked as a registered investment advisor. From 1999-2001, he was registered at Ameritrade. His longest tenure was at Fidelity from 2001 through July 2010. He had brief stints at Strategic Advisors, Inc. and Meridian United Capital before joining Accelerated Capital Group from 2010 through 2015. Agent Reed was registered with Coastal Equities for only five months then joined Wells Fargo from April 2016 through April 2020. While his CRD Report states that he “voluntarily resigned” from Wells Fargo, the explanation details that his resignation came while he was under investigation for selling away. He has been registered with First Financial Equity Corporation since April 2020. Reed was also a dually registered RIA with Gentry Wealth Management from July 2010 through April 2016, which became Ashton Thomas Financial in 2015. According to his FINRA BrokerCheck Report, Mr. Reed operates as “Reed Private Wealth”.

Arbitration is the Route to Recover GPB Capital Investment Losses

August 5, 2020 | by Stoltmann Law Offices

Chicago-based securities law firm Stoltmann Law Offices continues to represent investors in FINRA arbitrations nationwide recovering losses suffered in the GPB Capital Holdings group of funds, including the GPB Automotive Fund, GPB Holdings Fund II, and the GPB/Armada Waste Management Fund.

One of the appealing pitches that broker-dealers and investment advisers offer is the opportunity to invest in private companies with outstanding earnings potential, or in the case of GPB, relatively high annualized “interest” payments. Instead of buying shares in public companies on stock exchanges, the advisers sell interests in “closely held” companies, which are not listed on exchanges and not required to openly disclose their financial statements.

One such company was GPB Capital Holdings LLC, which has been the subject of federal and state litigation. GPB Capital is a New York City-based alternative investing firm that “seeks to acquire income-producing private companies.” So-called private placements have posed problems for investors in recent years because of sketchy financial disclosure and overselling.

Brokers Peddling High Risk “Alternative” Investments at Alarming Rate

July 10, 2020 | by Stoltmann Law Offices

Chicago-based Stoltmann Law Offices, P.C. continues to see a surge of investor cases involving “alternative” investments like non-traded REITs, BDCs, oil and gas LPs, and other private placements. These “alts” are almost always considered to be on the speculative end of the risk scale, and frankly, they usually perform poorly and result in investor losses.

Alternative investments cover a wide variety of unconventional investment vehicles. They may employ novel or quantitative trading strategies or pool money for investments in commodities or real estate, for example. The one thing they all usually have in common is steep management fees along with commissions. Both expenses come out of investors’ pockets. Examples of alternative investments, or “alts” in industry parlance, include unlisted or “private” Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), private equity, venture capital and hedge funds. While they are generally sold to high-net worth investors who can afford to take on increased risk, they are usually illiquid and complex. Brokers who sell these vehicles may not fully disclose how risky they are. Most of these investments are unregulated, so supervision by regulators is typically light or non-existent.

Investors can file arbitration claims with FINRA if brokers sell inappropriate alternative investments to clients. A year ago, FINRA censured and fined the broker-dealer Berthel Fisher in connection with sales of “inappropriate” alternative investments. FINRA awarded six investors $1.1 million and fined the firm $675,000. Berthel Fisher has had a history of running afoul of investors and regulatory fines. In 2014, the firm was fined $775,000 by FINRA for “supervisory deficiencies, including Berthel Fisher’s failure to supervise the sale of non-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs), and leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds (ETFs).” The firm was also selling managed commodity futures; oil and gas programs; business development companies; leveraged and inverse Exchange Traded Funds and equipment leasing programs.

James Galvin of Massachusetts is First Regulator To Drop the Bomb on GPB Capital

May 27, 2020 | by Joe Wojciechowski

It has taken longer than most practitioners expected, but finally, a securities regulator has formally filed a complaint against GPB Capital and its myriad private placement funds. Stoltmann Law Offices has been representing GPB Fund investors since January 2019 and filed dozens of cases against a laundry-list of brokerage firms that sold these speculative, conflict-laden disasters to their clients. Those brokerage firms we have filed cases against include National Securities, Madison Avenue, Kalos Capital, Newbridge Securities, Ausdal Financial, D.A. Noyes, and others. Every client’s case is unique, but fundamentally, each one of our GPB cases begin with the brokerage firm’s duties and obligations to perform due diligence on private placements prior to offering these opaque, complicated, unregulated, and speculative investments. This obligation is rooted in FINRA RN-10-22 and several other notices. Stoltmann Law Offices has written extensively on this blog about GPB and its numerous issues.

The regulatory complaint filed by Secretary Galvin of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, alleges that GPB misrepresented material facts in connection with the offer of several of its funds. Galvin’s complaint details the gross conflicts of interest at play inside of and between these various GPB Funds. The Administrative Complaint alleges that GPB Capital Holdings, LLC violated MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 110A, the Massachusetts Uniform Securities Act (the “Act”), and the regulations promulgated thereunder at 950 Mass. CODE REGS. 10.00 – 14.413 (the “Regulations”). The Enforcement Section also alleges that GPB Capital engaged in acts and practices in violation of Section 101 of the Act and Regulations. The Massachusetts action goes for the jugular, seeking ten forms of relief including rescission or all Massachusetts GPB investors, disgorgement of profits, civil penalties, and permanent bars from the securities and investment adviser industries.

Generally, the complaint alleges what those of us prosecuting FINRA cases for investors have known for some time. GPB began to pay investor distributions with new investor money beginning as early as 2017. This created an accounting disaster and GPB cannot find an auditor worth its salt to perform and sign off on an audit. The complaint also confirms the exceptionally complex spider web of interrelated companies across the funds and holding companies, including hundreds of different bank accounts. Eventually, all road lead back to David Gentile, the founder. The Massachusetts complaint also confirms that GPB used the promise of high commissions payable to selling brokers, and lots of bold promises about 8% distributions and a profitable exist plan, to raise $1.5 billion from retail investors nationwide. Selling brokerage firms collectively earned close to 10% of that total raise, or $150,000,000 in commissions for selling these conflict-laden complicated funds.

Investor Recovery Options for TCA Fund Management Losses

May 19, 2020 | by Joe Wojciechowski

Chicago-based Stoltmann Law Offices, P.C. is currently investigating claims on behalf of TCA Global Credit Fund and TCA Fund Management Group investors involving Royal Alliance advisor Mark Young, and Watts Capital, LLC and Thomas Watts. On May 11, 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil suit in federal court in Miami, Florida against TCA Fund Management Group and TCA Global Credit Fund.

The SEC complaint seeks to prevent TCA Fund Management Group and the Global Credit Fund from committing ongoing securities law violations and also sought the appointment of a receiver. The SEC alleges that for many years, the TCA Global Credit Fund, through its affiliate TCA Fund Management, intentionally inflated the net-asset-value – or price – of the fund hiding massive losses from investors. The SEC alleges that TCA inflated these values in two ways. First, the fund recognized revenues that it never actually received. It would essentially book a gain on loan fees prior to actually receiving them and if the loans never closed, TCA would not adjust their books to reflect reality. The second way TCA artificially inflated its books, according to the SEC, was to book investment banking fees it never actually earned, and actually knew in many instances that it would never earn. Basically, the way this scam worked, according to the SEC, is TCA would enter into a contract with a company to perform investment banking services for, let’s say, $100,000. Instead of waiting to actually perform the services and receive the $100,000 payment, TCA would book the $100,000 as received on their books at the time the contract was executed. The result of these practices was to provide investors with inflated values of these funds. The SEC alleges that these practices violations Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U.S.C. Section 77q(a), and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. Section 78j(b), and Exchange Act Rule 10b-5, 17 C.F.R. Section 240.10b-5; and violations of Sections 206(1), (2), and (4), along with Section 2076 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, 15 U.S.C. Sections 80b-6(1), 80b-6(2), 80b6(4), and 80b-7, and Advisers Act Rules 206(4)-7 and 206(4)-8, 17 C.F.R. Sections 275.206(4)-7, 275.206(4)-8.

According to documents field with the SEC for TCA funds, called a Form D, TCA Fund Management Group used numerous FINRA-Registered broker/dealers to sell investments in the TCA Global Credit Fund for many years including:

Brokerage Firms Can Be Liable for Investment Losses in Aeon Multi-Opportunity Fund and Kadmon Holdings

March 19, 2020 | by Deanna Besbekos-LaPage

Aeon Multi-Opportunity Fund I is a pooled private-equity fund. This investment was originally offered by John Thomas Financial and called the JTF Multi-Opportunity Fund. According to the amended Form D filing with the SEC, “various” placement agents sold Aeon, including Accelerated Capital Group. The funds raised by this Regulation D offering were invested in various technology and medical companies, such as Kadmon, Jawbone, Spotify, and Square. It also invested in Staffing 360, increasing the Claimants’ concentration in this failing company even further. According to the Regulation D filing, the total offering was $500 million. By April 27, 2012, only $3.35 million was sold. The expenses to invest were extraordinary. Aeon charged a 2% Annual Management Fee, an 8% Placement Agent Fee, 20% performance fee, and additional fund and transaction related expenses.

In January 2017, Aeon Multi-Opportunity Fund shares were converted into shares of Kadmon, a publicly-traded biotech company. By July 27, 2016, Kadmon was already a massive failure. It downsized its IPO to $75 million from originally a $100 million offering. It priced at the bottom of its proposed share range at $12 and fell to almost $10 despite existing investors committing to buy $40 million at the IPO. Kadmon (KDMN) has been recently trading for around $4 per share.

Kadmon was founded by Sam Waksal in October 2010, who became the CEO in 2014. Sam Waksal previously pled guilty and served jail time for insider trading at ImClone System, his brother Harlan’s company. In less than six years of operation, the Waksal brothers blew through $675 million of the cash raised by Kadmon leaving it with only $8.6 million in cash and a first quarter net loss of $32.8 million. In summary, Kadmon was a sinking ship years prior to the Aeon Multi-Opportunity Fund conversion, which was nothing more than a cash grab in an attempt to keep Kadmon afloat. At the time that investors could convert their shared from the Aeon fund to Kadmon, their investment was already down 47.81%.

SEC Sues Robert Gravette and Mark MacArthur, former Ausdal Financial and Criterion Wealth Management advisors, over Illicit Fees

February 25, 2020 | by Joe Wojciechowski

Stoltmann Law Offices is investigating claims made by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Robert Gravette, Mark MacArthur, and their Registered Investment Advisory firm, Criterion Wealth Management Insurance Services, Inc. According to the complaint filed by the SEC on February 12, 2020, Gravette and MacArthur orchestrated a scheme whereby they funneled their clients’ money into four private placement funds without disclosing that the fund managers, with whom they were personal friends, paid them compensation in excess of $1 million for doing so. This compensation arrangement was recurring, so Gravette and MacArthur had an undisclosed financial incentive to keep their clients’ money in these funds, as opposed to allocating the money elsewhere, when appropriate. Further, the huge fees Gravette and MacArthur received reduced the investment returns that the investors would have otherwise received. The SEC alleges that these acts violated the fiduciary duties owed by Gravette and MacArthur to their investment advisory clients, and constituted fraud. The SEC complaint alleges an impressive list of federal statutory violations, including Sections 206(1), 206(2), 206(4), and 207 0f the Advisers Act, 15 U.S.C. sections 80b-6(1), 80b-6(2), 80(b)-6(4), and 80b-7, and Rule 206(4)-7 thereunder.

At all times relevant to these allegations, both Gravette and McArthur were dually registered representatives with a FINRA registered broker/dealer called Ausdal Financial Partners. According to the SEC, Ausdal Financial was involved in these transactions because Criterion opened accounts for them at Ausdal and the private placement funds were held on Ausdal’s account statements. Under FINRA Rules and regulatory notices, Ausdal Financial, at all times relevant, had a duty to supervise the disclosed Advisory activities of its registered representatives. See FINRA Rule 3280, NTMs 91-32, 94-44, and 96-33. The dual-registration of investment advisors creates supervisory challenges for brokerage firms like Ausdal because under SEC Rules, they must maintain and record transactions like those entered into by their dually registered agents on their books and records, or its a violation. Since they must maintain transaction records which they did by virtue of holding these funds on their account statements, they also must supervise those transactions and the activities of their registered representatives, even if they appeared to be acting solely on behalf of their advisory firm. FINRA does not care and neither should the victims of this scam, which was executed in plain sight. Any competent compliance department would have supervised the transitions in these real estate private placement funds.

The very nature of these funds being “private placements” would have required an added measure of scrutiny by Ausdal compliance. Private placements tend to be speculative and exposed investors to unique risks like lack of liquidity, concentrated risk, key-man risk, and management risk not typically found in publicly traded investments like mutual funds. The most substantial issue with a private placement is that they typically pay their brokers very high commissions compared to more standard investments.