Michael J. Patton, a Baton Rouge investment adviser, has written a column for Forbes, detailing his experiences with Stanford Group Holdings. Patton, who now is president of Integrity Wealth Management, says during his time with Stanford in 2000 and 2001, the firm was managing returns of 8% to 10%. “I have always been suspicious of Stanford International’s returns,” Patton says. ” People are blaming the big wigs on Wall Street, but unquestioning financial advisers share the blame, as do investors who fail to perform basic due diligence when investments sound too good to be true.” Read his column here.
Patton also warns that the advisers who sold CDs for Stanford could be stripped of their securities licenses and banned from the industry if the feds choose to pursue them. But Nancy Condon, a spokeswoman for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, says the penalties aren’t so clear-cut. “We’re a long way off from that,” says Condon, who works for the independent agency that regulates securities firms. “It’s not a black or white issue.”
Meanwhile, CNBC is reporting that Allen Stanford, the flamboyant billionaire who started the firm, tried to arrange a one-way flight Tuesday from the United States to Antigua, right after he was charged with masterminding the $8 billion fraud. Read the story here.
