This BrokerDealer Gives Back and Helps Lead The Way

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army ranger lead the way fund marketsmuse update

BrokerDealer.com blog update is honored to re-play the news update profiling minority brokerdealer Mischler Financial’s mission to support Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund, the non-profit dedicated to supporting the families of US Army Rangers killed in the line of duty and service-disabled Rangers and their families in need of financial support that is not made available by the federal government.

(r) Mischler Fixed Income Trader Glen Capelo (c) Duke University Coach K” Krzyzewski (r) Mischler CEO Dean Chamberlain

(r) Mischler Fixed Income Trader Glen Capelo (c) Duke University Coach K” Krzyzewski (r) Mischler CEO Dean Chamberlain

Oct 5 2015–Stamford, CT and Newport Beach CA–Mischler Financial Group, Inc., the financial industry’s oldest and largest institutional brokerage and investment bank owned and operated by Service-Disabled Veterans is pleased to have served as a Silver Sponsor for the 2015 Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund Gala. Silver Sponsors contributed a minimum of $25,000; proceeds to Lead The Way are dedicated to support service-disabled US Army Rangers and the families of Rangers who have died, have been injured or currently serving in harm’s way around the world.

This year’s annual gala took place September 30 at New York’s Chelsea Piers and NBC News Anchor Tom Brokaw served as Master of Ceremonies. The 2015 Lead The Way event paid tribute to 5-time NCAA champion and college basketball legend Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski, a US Military Academy at West Point Graduate (USMA ’69) and a former classmate of Mischler’s Founder and Chairman Walt Mischler. Coach K served two tours of duty prior to his career as a world famous university basketball coach.

Mischler Financial’s VP of Capital Markets Robert MacLean (USMA ’02), who served seven years as a US Army Ranger and is a two-time recipient of the Bronze Star, served as a member of this year’s Lead The Way Fund Host Committee. MacLean shared that honor with a short list of military veterans who have since forged a path on Wall Street at firms that include among others, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, UBS, Credit Suisse, Barclays, and Fortress Investment Group.

After Coach K retired as a Captain in the US Army, he then served five years as Head Coach for the USMA before accepting the role of Head Basketball Coach for Duke University’s Blue Devils in 1980. During the past 35 years, Coach K has not only led his team to five NCAA champions, he has dedicated the past nearly four decades to contributing his thought leadership to an assortment of national and local philanthropic initiatives.

Stated Mischler Financial Group CEO Dean Chamberlain, also an alumnus of the USMA (’85) who served two tours of duty prior to injuries sustained in the line of duty, “In addition to personal contributions on the part of our firm’s leaders, Mischler provides year-round support to a select group of military veteran and SDV-focused philanthropies and we are particularly honored and proud to continue our ongoing support of Lead The Way, one of the most impactful organizations dedicated to providing assistance to military veterans and their families.”

AppFolio Follows The Tech Trend And Files For IPO

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apm-logo

With two tech companies already set to launch their IPOs this week, another tech company has filed for an IPO, on Monday, May 18, 2015, with  the SEC.   AppFolio is most known for its web-based real estate property management system. That allows property managers to market and manage their portfolio. It includes accounting and property management functions with the ability to email work-orders, owner statements and resident communications. AppFolio are hoping to raise up to $100 million from this IPO. This IPO update is courtesy of Reuters Canada’s article, “Property management software maker AppFolio files for IPO“, with ab excerpt below.

AppFolio Inc, a maker of online property management software, filed with U.S. regulators on Monday for an initial public offering of common stock.

Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Pacific Crest Securities and William Blair are underwriters to the IPO.

The California-based company, whose investors include BV Capital and IGSB, provides software to small and medium-sized property managers and also offers legal software for small law firms under the brand “MyCase”.

AppFolio’s revenue rose 61 percent to $15.8 million for the quarter ended March 31. Net loss widened to $3.6 million from $1.2 million a year earlier.

To read more on the AppFolio IPO filing, click here.

 

BrokerDealer-Backed Symphony Is Singing Happy Tune

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symphony

BrokerDealer.com blog update is courtesy of coverage from MarketsMuse.com Tech Talk and profiles the latest from Symphony, the brokerdealer-backed financial communications program that is looking to make the Bloomberg terminals (or at least their most-used messaging application) mute.

This David v. Goliath type battle pitting well-backed upstarts against the ubiquitous Bloomberg LP could become a trend among other aspiring fintech, trading system and specialty financial data providers and terminals  when considering last week’s snafu that, for a few hours, rendered the Bloomberg LP terminal farm “tradus interruptus” across the globe (albeit, the fix was made prior to the opening bell of US markets.)

Tom Glocer
Tom Glocer

As spotted first by of all places, the NY Post, “Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters and a managing partner of Angelic Ventures, is joining Symphony’s board of directors, according to a person directly familiar with the company’s plans (according to the NY Post).”

Symphony, which received a $66 million investment last year from 15 financial companies has been seen as a viable alternative to the $24,000-a-year Bloomberg terminal.

The company’s backers include a who’s who of Wall Street financial companies: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNY Mellon, BlackRock, Citadel, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Jefferies, JPMorgan, Maverick, Morgan Stanley, Nomura and Wells Fargo.

Last fall, these companies contributed $66M to finance Symphony, and using that money, purchased Perzo, a company that was building a secure communications platform. After the purchase, they named Perzo founder David Gurle as Symphony CEO.

In addition to providing encrypted chat services, Symphony doesn’t store any communications as a third party, and allows a bank’s compliance officers to stop chats from leaving the company — an increasingly important factor for banks who are seeing chat records in court papers.

The addition of Glocer is only the latest of alum of the news and financial data company to join Symphony.

David Gurle, Symphony’s founder and CEO, was global head of collaborative services at Thomson Reuters, and worked on the company’s chat tool, according to the company’s Web site.

In addition to Gurle, there’s Eran Barak, Symphony’s global head of business operations, and Koray Oztekin and Ann Demirtjis, who do product management, according to the company’s Web site.
At least four other Symphony employees in business development have formerly worked at Thomson Reuters, according to LinkedIn.

Symphony is already in wide use at Goldman Sachs, which led the round of funding last year. The service is expected to be broadly rolled out to Wall Street by July.

Southeastern Grocers Steps Out of IPO

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247 Wall StBrokerDealer.com blog post courtesy of extract from 247wallst.com and Jon C. Ogg

 

 

A form “RW” was filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission by a company named Southeastern Grocers LLC on Tuesday. While this might not sound like much to most people, this means that the current owner and operator of supermarket chains Winn-Dixie and BI-LO has now formally withdrawn its plans to conduct an initial public offering. Southeastern Grocers is based in Jacksonville, Florida and it had first initially filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission almost a full year ago to conduct an initial public offering for up to $500,000,000 worth of common stock.

The original filing showed that the underwriters hired for the offering were to be Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, William Blair, and Wells Fargo Securities. Do we dare ask if their salespeople couldn’t sell yet one more grocery chain to the public – particularly one that had previously filed for bankruptcy.

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New York AG Puts Top BrokerDealer Dark Pools In Cross-Hairs (Again)

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BrokerDealer.com blog update courtesy of multiple news sources.

NY AG Eric Schneiderman

NY AG Eric Schneiderman

Less than two months after N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman levied charges against Barclays that it deliberately misled investors in its dark pool, regulators are reportedly looking into operations at five more investment banks. No specific allegations have been revealed, but several firms have confirmed that either Schneiderman’s office or another agency is investigating their practices.

The latest additions to the list of firms under scrutiny by the N.Y. attorney general’s office are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, according to The Fox Business Network, which cited people with direct knowledge of matter as sources. Neither firm has publicly acknowledged an investigation, but they also would not deny the scrutiny, according to the report.

Press officials at both firms as well as at the N.Y. attorney general’s office all declined comment.

One week ago, Credit Suisse revealed that regulators have asked the firm for information about its alternative trading system (ATS) as part of an investigation into dark pools. Credit Suisse said it was cooperating with “various governmental and regulatory authorities” regarding its ATS but would not specify which regulators were investigating, according to the Wall Street Journal. The bank further said that it is one of 30 defendants named in lawsuits related to high-frequency trading or other alleged violations filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Days earlier, UBS and Deutsche Bank disclosed that they were the subject of inquiries. UBS said that it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the N.Y. attorney general’s office and other regulators as part of an industry-wide investigation, according to the New York Times.

“These inquiries include an SEC investigation that began in early 2012 concerning features of UBS’s ATS, including certain order types and disclosure practices that were discontinued two years ago,” the firm said, according to the New York Times article.

At the same time, it was reported that Deutsche Bank separately disclosed it had been contacted by regulators. Deutsche Bank did not reveal which regulators had contacted the firm, but the New York Times report cited an unnamed source familiar with the matter as saying that the N.Y. attorney general’s office was investigating.  Deutsche Bank and UBS both said they were cooperating with authorities.