Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
I have a written a few stories on the SEC’s case against Louis Schooler and his firm, Western Financial Planning Corp. The Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges against them for a real estate investment scheme. Schooler was selling general partnership interests that owned real estate using what looked like inflated valuations. By default general … Read more »
The tale of Western Financial Planning Corporation and Louis Schooler first caught my eye because the Securities and Exchange Commission brought charges against a real estate company. I stuck with the story because Western Financial tried really hard to structure the investments to avoid being considered securities. Even thought it tried really hard, a court … Read more »
Back in September, the SEC announced an asset freeze against Western Financial Planning Corporation and its principal Louis Schooler for a $50 million real estate fraud. That caught my eye because the SEC has little jurisdiction over real estate. The structure of the real estate investments went a long way to try to be not … Read more »
When the SEC announced an asset freeze against Western Financial Planning Corporation and its principal Louis Schooler, I was a bit troubled by the structure of the investments in question. The firm had structured the real estate investment vehicles as general partnerships. The presumption is that a general partnership interest is not a security. So … Read more »
The SEC announced an asset freeze against Western Financial Planning Corporation and its principal Louis Schooler. At first the situation sounded like a complaint against a real estate investment fund, but after reviewing the complaint, I found it to be a much more twisted tale. The defendants have not agreed to settle with the SEC, … Read more »