Named after university known more for golf courses than scholarship? Check.
$50 billion in assets? Check.
Substantial overseas AUM? Check.
More than double the rate of return for similar investments? Check.
Limited details on investing strategy? Check.
Small, obscure auditor? Check.
Retribution for questions about investment strategy? Check.
Hmmmm.
Is Stanford Financial’s Offer Too Good to Be True? [Businessweek]
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- Use the Bloomberg command
NH BLG_DEALBREAKER <GO>
to access Dealbreaker
Houston may have a problem
This could be very,very interesting, nein?
Glory days. U gotta luv em.
Yesterday’s comment by a guest. OK.
Is CNBC really saying Orange County CA/Mortgage market is patient zero with the House of Card special? reeeally?
Are these CD’s FDIC insured? Sounds like no (Antigua bank, not US sub of same), so a buyer is basically getting senior debt of a highly leveraged and not exactly transparent enterprise. So why compare the yield to that of a CD? The risk is certainly different.
On a separate note, these guys always have very impressive looking ads in the Saturday FT. Made me seek out their web site. Turns out that they have branches in the most unlikely places: Latin America, plus dozens of small towns in the US South (Macon, Mobile, etc.). Just smells odd.
After the first comment, I was expecting it to be called Duke Financial.
Ponzarrific.
Tip of the iceberg, frightening… Amazing waht the SEC finds when they pay attention.
Stanford not known for scholarship? Really?
This guy was falsely claiming to be a decendent of ex-California Gov. (whom Stanford U. is named after), is referred to on website as Sir Allen Stanford (knighted by Antigua Gov’t), and is major sponsor of plenty of high profile events/sports teams…. reeks of trying too hard to build credibility where there is none. Going down in flames…
Really more of a Ponzi Parlay than a trifecta
ftav :
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport
/cricket/article1864808.ece
Really more of a Ponzi Parlay than Trifects. Plus they both start with P.
It’s not like this guy was beneath the radar at all either. Guess who was the largest provider of corporate jet trips to congressman?
I was personally in Antigua right after he hosted a junket for the Congressional Black Caucus a few years ago.
I always just figured his bank down there though was a beneficiary of Antigua’s status at the time as the financial domicile of the offshore betting internet sites.
Yesterday, congressman Michael Capuano yelled and moaned that he doesn’t have one cent in any US bank…
….please, please, please, let him be 100% in this (any) ponzi scheme!
please?
The Ponzi Superfecta paid out pretty well.
6 – The risk would be different, except that the risk is emperically zero based on the returns.
@19 – you should know by now: past returns are not an indicator of future performance.
Yeah, about those returns…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aUtjE4_bm4oM&refer=home
“The agencies are investigating Stanford’s sales of certificates of deposit issued by its Antigua-based affiliate, Stanford International Bank Ltd., according to the former employees. The agency has asked former employees about the bank’s stated returns on investment, between 10.3 and 15.1 percent every year from 1995 until last year, according to documents and annual reports on the bank’s Web site. SIB has $8.5 billion in assets and 30,000 clients, according to the site.”
Foreign junk is not that safe.
The firm has also become a fixture in South Florida, check
19 /20 But no one addressed my point: this is a CD only in the imagination of the marketing people. There’s nothing CD about it. Its a private placement of senior (is it in fact senior?) level debt in a firm lacking transparency.
This thing is bullshit. See the underlying “bank” on Bloomberg:
“The bank said in a December report that it has a loss of $110 million last year. The S&P 500 index fell 39 percent last year.
The bank discloses broad investment categories in marketing materials and on its web site. In 2006, it reported that 57.4 percent of its portfolio was in equities, 21.9 percent in Treasuries and corporate bonds, 13 percent in metals and 7 percent in alternatives, according to a disclosure statement related to the CD offering. The rest was in cash, mostly dollars.
Someone want to tell me how you only lose $100 million against $8 billion with that allocation in 2008?
OK kids, inspired by one of Harry M’s line of inquiry in exposing Madoff, has anyone out there ever actually done any corporate bond, equity, precious metals, etc business for Stanford?
My business called Slumdog Financial never got off the ground. I did no charity work. I’m frugal.
I know what I’m doing. I’m honest. I paid big bucks to a big auditing firm.
Check?
you forgot to add to your checklist:
Principal has a british accent and/or sponsors polo and cricket matches
Principal has a moustache
Principal awarded knighthood by a money laundering banana republic
Brochure looks like Ralph Lauren catalogue
Stamford Financial has a much better ring to it.
And a much better academic reputation.
Stanford Investment Model-
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.
You’re an idiot. Stanford is known for scholarship, but more importantly there is only one golf course.
@30 here, here
Stanford is the place to study on the West Coast
Look at the alumni and their accomplishments (Silicon Valley, yada yada)
Sour grapes, EP, sour grapes
Brilliant model
Stanford (allegedly) has taken the Keating model and upscaled. Charles Keating back in the day sold bonds backed by his company as a cd alternative.
Stanford copied the Edward Jones model of staying out of the major financial centers, ATL & Houston being the closest they get.
Finally when they would open an office they would make large charitable pledges and donations and use that to get to the right people.
On the other hand it could be just a horrible misunderstanding.
BITH
There was a guy in Stanford’s Houston office who traded taxable fixed income for the broker/dealer side of the firm. He was aware of specific problems within the firm and tried to discuss it with his supervisors. The guy was summarily fired for doing so. He brought his complaints to the attention of FINRA back in 2007 and FINRA did absolutely nothing.
FINRA did nothing, get out! Where’s the forehead slapper when you need him?
Check out also: –Has been photographed drunk in the cricket stands feeling up cricket players’ embarrassed wives.
–Directors of SIB board have such classy experience as “ex mayor of Mexia, Texas, (nr. Waco)” and “President, Mexia cemetery”.
Some entertaining Stanford stories over on Clusterstock.
Board member Lee P. Brown chairman of Unity Change Bank. Lee was former police commissioner in Atlanta.Not the cleanest or sharpest kife in the drawer.
Board member Lee P. Brown chairman of Unity Change Bank. Lee was former police commissioner in Atlanta.Not the cleanest or sharpest kife in the drawer.
Oh come on, he knows ALL ABOUT criminology:
3 times mayor of Houston,
Doctorate in Criminology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970
Masters in Criminology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968
Masters in Sociology from San José State University in 1964
Bachelors in Criminology from California State University, Fresno in 1961.
Brown Group, one hopes not intimately involved with Stanford Group.
Looks good to me.