Find a Brokerdealer who is also Socially Responsible

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BrokerDealer.com blog update courtesy of extract from Investment News.

Socially responsible investors look to promote concepts and ideals that the investors feel strongly about. Generally, socially responsible investors accomplish this by investing in stocks that the investor believes best hold to important values to the investor; advocate for share holders in corporate decisions; and investing in communities and helping with community service activities.

Socially responsible investing is on the rise, and women advisers are leading the way in offering clients opportunities to invest in a personally meaSocially Responsible Investingningful way.

The wealth management industry as a whole is opening its eyes to potential business gains from the increasing client demand for investments with environmental and social impact. Nearly half of the 1,913 advisers surveyed said they’ve offered an SRI options to clients because the clients requested it.

Most financial professionals expect investor interest in SRI to trend upward, especially among young, affluent investors who strongly value sustainable investments and want to put their money where their values are.

“It’s clear that [socially] responsible investment strategies are now a client expectation that advisers need to be equipped to provide,” said First Affirmative senior vice president Betsy Moszeter. “We are encouraged to see that industry professionals are looking ahead, and understand that the views and concerns of Millennial investors will need to be addressed in coming years.”

Socially Responsible Investors will work hard to make the voices of their investors heard and invest in businesses and governments that make a positive impact in our country and around the world.

With the need for socially responsible investors on the rise, find a Brokerdealer that supports the values you care about most and will invest in companies and governments that hold the same values up high as you do and an brokerdealer that will advocate for you.  Brokerdealer.com provides several databases that offer many different socially responsible investors to work with.

BrokerDealer.com IPO Update: Native Ad Firm OutBrain Enlists Bankers for $1bil Offering

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outbrain-incs-secret-ipoBrokerDealer.com blog update with coverage of Tel Aviv-based native-ad company Outbrain Inc. is courtesy WSJ’s Orr Hirschauge.

TEL AVIV—Outbrain Inc., a provider of “native ads,” filed confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month seeking preliminary approval to list shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market, according to people familiar with the matter.

If a decision is made to go ahead, Outbrain is expected to seek a valuation of around $1 billion, according to one person familiar with the matter.

It is unclear how much of the company it would seek to sell in any listing.

Outbrain has tapped brokerdealers Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan as lead underwriters for any listing, these people said. If the filing passes SEC scrutiny, the company is aiming to go public in the first quarter of 2015, according to these people.

Founded in Israel in 2006, Outbrain was a pioneer in native advertising, or ads that are meant to be more integrated into a website than other forms of ads, like pop-ups and banner ads. It is now based in New York.

Outbrain places content, like recommended further reading, on a website, linking to the publisher’s own content or sponsored content. Currently employing around 430 people, the company has raised roughly $100 million in the past from a list of investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Carmel Ventures, Glenrock Israel, Gemini Israel Funds Ltd., Index Ventures, Vintage Partners and HarbourVest Partners LLC.

To read the complete coverage, please visit the WSJ via this link

 

Warning to BrokerDealers: Stay Out of Ball Player Locker Rooms!

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Brokerdealer.com blog update includes extract from WSJ Nov 7 story

BrokerDealers and Financial Advisors take notice: stay away from college ball players, even if the rules and regulations that govern stockbrokers are not covered by the same rules that prohibit sports agents from fraternizing at fraternities or any other venue where college athletes could be ripe for solicitation.

football

Getty Images

Steve Octavien is shown playing for the Dallas Cowboys in a 2009 loss against the Denver Broncos. After graduating from Nebraska, he invested $80,000 with financial adviser Mary Wong. He hasn’t been able to get back any of the money and believes she used it to pay her own credit-card bills and make other clients whole. Getty Images

Former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Steve Octavien recently landed a marketing job, got married, brought his newborn daughter home from the hospital and is saving up for the down payment on a house.

But as he gets on with life after six years of professional football, the 29-year-old Mr. Octavien regrets handing over $80,000, including his signing bonus, to a stockbroker named Mary Wong in 2008. They met while he was playing at the University of Nebraska, where he says she sometimes paid his rent, cellphone bills, car insurance and other expenses, a likely violation of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules.

The $80,000 soon disappeared, he says, and Ms. Wong pleaded guilty in 2010 to securities fraud related to an alleged Ponzi scheme that victimized other clients. She is serving a 63-month sentence in federal prison.

“Now I have a family,” says Mr. Octavien, who earned roughly $600,000 in his NFL career with four teams. “That would have been money that I would have loved to give them.” Prison officials say Ms. Wong told them she declined to comment for this article.

It is illegal in most states for sports agents to provide gifts or other items of value to amateur athletes—and agents are supposed to register with state regulators before approaching an athlete. Violators can be prosecuted.

Steve Octavien played linebacker from 2005 to 2007 at the University of Nebraska, where he says financial adviser Mary Wong sometimes paid his rent, cellphone bills, car insurance and other expenses. The gifts are a likely violation of National Collegiate Athletic Association rules but aren’t prohibited by current laws. Huskers

Those laws rarely apply to financial advisers like Ms. Wong. While NCAA rules prohibit athletes from accepting money or gifts from anyone trying to woo them, there is little to discourage financial advisers from trying.

The full article at WSJ

As a result, brokers, insurance agents, bankers and other types of financial advisers often contact athletes who are promising pro prospects, according to college athletic officials.

Making Marijuana Public; Capital Raising Conundrum:Pot Dealers’ BrokerDealers Test SEC On Registration of Scofflaw Shares

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Brokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of extract from Oct 30 WSJ Risk & Compliance column by Greg Millman.

Two businesses that explicitly state they intend to cultivate and sell marijuana are hoping the Securities and Exchange Commission will soon clear their applications to register shares. Or not.

The SEC’S response to S-1 filings by Terra Tech Corp. and GrowBlox  Sciences Inc., initiated in August and September, respectively, could show whether the agency is willing to accelerate the registration of shares of businesses that say they intend to break Federal law.

pot king

Derek Peterson, CEO Terra Tech

Both Terra Tech and GrowBlox are now pursuing the S-1 registration process because of contractual commitments to providers of capital who received convertible debt and/or warrants, according to their S-1 forms. SEC registration would allow the holders to sell their securities without meeting the conditions of Rule 144A, which “allows public resale of restricted or control securities” only after a holding period before the sale, and other conditions.

Although marijuana use has been legalized by  20 states, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, it remains illegal at the federal level.

Terra Tech’s  board made a decision “earlier this year” to compete for permits to cultivate and sell marijuana in states that have such permitting regimes, according to Chief Executive Derek Peterson. The company previously filed two S-1s in 2013. While they were in process, the SEC asked whether the company’s business model violated federal law, and “we responded that were just selling equipment at that point. They were comfortable with that at the time,” said Mr. Peterson. On both of those S-1s, the SEC responded favorably to Terra Tech’s request to accelerate, that is, to allow the filings to become effective without a waiting period.

For the full article from the WSJ, please click here

Israel-based Deal Activity Inspires Bankers & BrokerDealers

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Brokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of extract from Oct 27 edition of MarketsMedia.com

Investing in Israel: More Than Technology

marketsmedia logoWhen it comes to investing in Israel, technology is a big part of the story, but it isn’t the only story, according to Steven Schoenfeld, chief investment officer of BlueStar Global Investors.

“Israel is actually a multifaceted story,” Schoenfeld said last week in a panel discussion on the TA-25 Index. “Israel’s tech economy, particularly with the publication of the book Start-up Nation, is the sexier part of Israel, and especially because you see so many of those tech companies coming to list in the New York, that’s a big part of the economy. But, in fact, even if you include all of those tech companies, it’s only about 30 to 35% of Israel’s market cap.”

BlueStar specializes in the Israeli capital markets. Its mission is to develop investment strategies that provide global institutional and retail investors efficient access to the full range of Israeli asset classes.

Its flagship product is the BlueStar Israel Global Index, a benchmark designed for providing balanced sector exposure to Israel’s dynamic economy. The index is designed to serve as an asset allocation tool, a performance benchmark, and the basis for investment products. Continue reading →