The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Criterion Wealth Management Insurance Services Inc., a Santa Clarita, Calif.-based registered investment adviser, with breaching its fiduciary duty and defrauding clients when it recommended investments in private real estate investment funds.
The firm’s then co-owners, Robert Gravette and Mark MacArthur, also were charged.
The SEC’s complaint alleges that from 2014 to 2017, the defendants recommended that their advisory clients invest more than $16 million in four private real estate investment funds without disclosing that the fund managers had paid them more than $1 million, which was on top of fees that defendants were charging clients directly.
The complaint also alleges the defendants were incentivized to keep their clients invested in the funds, rather than allocate their capital elsewhere, because the additional side compensation was recurring and depended on Criterion’s clients remaining invested. For two of the funds, this undisclosed compensation arrangement resulted in reduced investment returns for the defendants' advisory clients.
The complaint seeks permanent injunctions from future violations of these provisions, disgorgement and prejudgment interest, and civil penalties from all defendants.
Saba pushed; the justices pushed back - and the SEC keeps the gavel.
Two restrictive covenants gone in one ruling - and the drafting flaw is everywhere.
Clients' everyday realities, anxieties, and aspirations naturally change as they go up the wealth scale – and that has profound implications for advisors helping them find what "enough" really means.
The RIA technology giant's new office features a fitness center, café and outdoor community spaces, including a beehive, picnic area and herb garden for over 100 employees.
Liquidity risk overtakes access as the top concern for E&Fs as private markets dominate portfolios.
As $84 trillion prepares to change hands, advisors who treat estate planning as peripheral are quietly building a sieve, not a book.
In volatile markets, the advisors who win aren't the ones with the best calls - they're the ones whose clients stay the course.
