Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
A trucking company is looking for capital. It needs trailers and trucks. You give the company money to buy the truck on your behalf and the trucking company leases it back to you. The truck company will arrange the purchase and financing. It will find a driver. It will take care of licensing, registration, insurance,…
You’re senior management of a public company. You just made a million dollar bonus for performance. You get paid $735,000 if the company is sold. You’ve got 150,000 shares of company stock that’ll be worth over $4 million. You’re in the process of selling the company. Do you tell your wife and best friend about…
In fiscal year 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission had a departure of 18% of its employees. The SEC’s Division of Investment Management lost 24% of its staff during fiscal year 2025. What is the effect of the departure? The GAO had interviews with several dozen SEC employees. We’ll see how this affects the SEC….
“BREAKING NEWS THE [Politician] PORTFOLIO ON DUB SOARED +7.77% TODAY, HITTING A NEW ALL TIME HIGH OF +120%” This proposed marketing blurb was submitted at 2:31 pm., before the markets has closed for the day. As the Massachusetts Secretary of State pointed out, that is not performance for the day. It’s only performance for part…
These are some compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention. She Was Invisible for Six Months. Then She Found Out She Was Even More Invisible Than She Thought. By John Reed Stark in LinkedIn And here is the darkest irony embedded in that transcript: the SEC enforcement division Ryan helped hollow out — the one…
I was scratching my head for a while after my initial reading of the Securities and Exchange Commission action against Madison Capital Funding. The SEC dove into a valuation process that seemed relatively straight-forward to me, but labeled it a fraud. Madison’s business model is a bit complex. It originates loans. (This was 2020, before…
As retail access to private markets accelerates, the Securities and Exchange Commission hosted a roundtable on Wednesday to discuss governance, valuation, and other considerations in the private markets. The SEC has a clear aim of promoting “retailization” of private markets. My skepticism of this direction is not one of risk and valuation but of liquidity….
Lots of advisers track the FINRA gift limit of $100. Some specifically because they have dual registration. More use that limit because it became a de facto industry standard because it was the only one out there. The current gift limit of $100 has been in place since 1992. That was way too low. FINRA…
Beginning March 1, 2026, select professionals involved in real estate closings and settlements are required to report information to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for non-financed transfers of residential real estate to legal entities or trusts. The Department of the Treasury has long recognized that the illicit use of residential…
Why go through the hassle of filing a Form ADV and registering as an investment adviser if you are not a real firm? That was the question I was asking myself a few months ago when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed cases against a half-dozen firms for false ADV filings. Last week the SEC…