Education News

23 February 2009

SEC Accusing Stanford Financial Group of Fraud

Posted by forex under: Business; Forex; Investment .

This one hits close to home as the Stanford Financial Group is located in Houston.

The SEC has registered a complaint against Stanford Financial Group (StanfordFinancial.com), alleging massive fraud. You can read the PDF of the complaint here. If the SEC’s complaint is to be believed, Stanford Financial Group is evil. Read the complaint for yourself.

The complaint is filled with lots of accusations. I found this one from the SEC’s press release interesting:

According to the SEC’s complaint, the defendants have misrepresented to CD purchasers that their deposits are safe, falsely claiming that the bank re-invests client funds primarily in “liquid” financial instruments (the portfolio); monitors the portfolio through a team of 20-plus analysts; and is subject to yearly audits by Antiguan regulators. Recently, as the market absorbed the news of Bernard Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme, SIB attempted to calm its own investors by falsely claiming the bank has no “direct or indirect” exposure to the Madoff scheme.

The SEC seems to be overreacting to the Madoff tie. When I dug into the complaint, I found exposure of $400,000. From the complaint:

In a December 2008 Monthly Report, the bank told investors that their money was safe because SID “had no direct or indirect exposure to any of [Bernard] Madoffs investments.” But, contrary to this statement, at least $400,000 in Tier 2 was invested in Meridian, a New York-based hedge fund that used Tremont Partners as its asset manager. Tremont invested approximately 6-8% of the SIB assets they indirectly managed with Madoffs investment firm.

Yes, it is exposure to Madoff, but it is relatively small exposure for a company managing billions of dollars.

I did find something kind of interesting while looking around on Stanford Group’s website. For instance, here is some information on their investment strategy. It sounds eerily similar to Madoff’s “strategy.”

Stanford’s Stanford Investment Model (SIM):

The objective of the Stanford Investment Model (SIM) is to provide consistent returns regardless of market volatility, and it is based on the investment philosophy that has been used successfully for all of Stanford’s proprietary funds. We target a consistent yield or income stream as agreed upon with our clients, while monitoring risk and managing the overall volatility of the portfolio.

Our strategy for diversification to minimize the effects of market volatility is sophisticated and far-reaching. We pursue true global diversification with relentless intensity to meet our objective of targeted returns. We carefully consider asset classes, investment strategies, sectors, and regions of the world that most investors either don’t have easy access to or rarely receive information about. SIM was developed first and foremost to minimize the downside risk of a portfolio.

We recognize taking risk is essential to achieve investor goals, but there is a difference between accepting the risk the market gives you and managing that risk.

Although we may not outperform the indices during a bull cycle, our investment strategy is one of long-term consistency through bull and bear markets. The Stanford Investment Model offers investors a truly different view of wealth management.

This stuff is getting more exciting by the day. The best fiction writers would have a hard time coming up with stuff this good.