AdvisorSpoke’s ‘Clark Kent’ to the rescue

There is a storm brewing in the financial adviser blogosphere.
An anonymous blog called AdvisorSpoke emerged last week to attack AdvisorHub, a popular website started last year that quickly drew readers for the gossip it publishes on a “rumors” page.
AdvisorSpoke, which is edited anonymously by someone who writes under the pen name “Clark Kent,” is aiming to set the record straight when it finds inaccuracies in AdvisorHub stories.
“AdvisorHub has become more than a nuisance,” an anonymous blogger on AdvisorSpoke wrote. “They have become dangerous to our industry. Why? Because they lie, and publish it.”
AdvisorHub was founded by Andrew Parish, a former broker who also ran a recruiting firm. Its contributors publish under the name “Yoda.” Mr. Parish declined to comment.
Clark Kent said in an opening post on AdvisorSpoke that he is a veteran of the wealth management industry and decided to create the site with a handful of his friends. There are five contributors total, he told Reuters, which first reported about the website.
Clark Kent declined to elaborate on their identities in an email exchange with InvestmentNews, but said they worked at three separate financial firms. He could not provide identities because they are forbidden to speak to the media, according to the AdvisorSpoke wesbite.
They have gone to lengths to conceal their identities. All websites are required to register contact information for their owners, but AdvisorSpoke is registered through an anonymous web hosting service and uses a post office box in place of the address.
In addition, two I.P. addresses associated with the website and Clark Kent’s email mask their locations and dead end in London.
The site only provides some small clues to their identities, implying some may be complex directors or in some kind of recruiting role at their firms.
“We are the people doing the deals that are being lied about,” according to the website. “We personally know, or in many cases ARE, the very players in the dramas that are being misreported.”
Despite the admission they are in the business and possibly licensed, Clark Kent said they were not concerned about whether regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission could view the site as improper marketing or subpoena their identity. He also said they were not worried about disclosing the site as an outside business activity. The site could arguably be a form of marketing, and brokers are required to seek approval from their firms for activities that take time away from serving clients.
“We’re not concerned about any of the issues raised in your email,” Clark Kent wrote. “And just to be clear, this is not a business/commercial project, it’s a specifically targeted commentary, as we explain on the site.”
AdvisorHub earlier this year came under scrutiny after a Reuters story revealed that Mr. Parish had at one point considered selling data to securities firms that it collected about brokers who came onto its site. AdvisorSpoke claims that it will allow users to browse anonymously.
“When you visit AdvisorSpoke.com you are free to browse or participate with your contributions completely anonymously,” the site says. “We don’t use tracking cookies or any other little tricks to gather any information about you that can be used to identify you.”