I admit that I’ve always been a little skeptical of Bruce Fenton's work history claims. Different firms with limited web presence and no specific deals listed anywhere. Poorly crafted main website that also doesn't list any employees or specific deals done:
http://www.atlanticfinancial.com/So I did a little more digging, it does seem at a minimum that there is some puffery in his bio and some misstatements in some comments he made as part of his running for Director of the Foundation. I’ll go through my research in the order it occurred, as some of the conclusions evolved through the process, and am trying to be neutral. Also, I note that all the info linked is either information Bruce has published, or is publically available info by virtue of his business activities.
First, take a look at his linkedin page:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucefenton Give it a read, looks pretty impressive.
And then go to this link which shows the form ADV for his current firm, Atlantic Financial. On the left, there is link for "view all in PDF."
http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/iapd/content/viewform/adv/Sections/iapd_AdvRegulatorStatusSection.aspx?ORG_PK=159167&RGLTR_PK=50030&STATE_CD=MA&FLNG_PK=00AFF2940008017C01A413100562A635056C8CC0So let us start at Item 5 - employees. He has only one listed, himself. This seems a bit at odds with his claim on linkedin that "Atlantic Financial is a full service investment and wealth management company founded in 1994 and was the first full service investment firm on the Internet."
Now lets go to 5.D. 5.D.1. shows his client allocation by % of clients. But then in 5.D.2 it shows "approximate amount of your regulatory assets under management (reported in Item 5.F. below) attributable to each of the following type of client." Bruce checks "None" for every single category.
Now on 5.G, type of services he provides, he checked the box for "financial planning services" and "portfolio management." So maybe the reason for the "none" above is that his business is more about "financial planning services" than "portfolio management." But, it appears no, as 5.H says he provided planning services to 0 clients in the past year.
Note that his linkedin says he: "- personally placed or sourced over $5 billion in investments during career" and "- created and managed $500 million in-house investment services group for 100 year old law firm.”
Now let’s look at Item 6, "Other Business Activities." He lists none. But his linkedin page notes that he is also a managing director of Boston Gulf Advisors. Incidentally, the facebook page for Boston Gulf Advisors is here:
https://www.facebook.com/BostonGulfAdvisorsGroup/ It lists the company website as
http://bostongulfconsulting.com/ When I click that link, I get "Error establishing a database connection."
There is more we could do here, but lets take a detour. Go back to the main page and look on the left for "Brochures." Click ADV Form 2B. Scroll down to "Education." Yes, he lists a BA from Bentley University, as with linkedin. But unlike on linkedin, here he lists a graduation date of 2006, well after his first financial job as a VP at Morgan Stanley in 1992. So not on outright misstatement, but a little obfuscation. And, if he had been in the investment banking group at Morgan Stanley, there is no way he would get hired without a college degree and make VP in two years. But the investment advisor group could be different.
Next, look at "Business Background." His Atlantic Financial experience here begins 9/2011, versus linkedin where his experience for that firm is: "December 1994 – Present (21 years 2 months)".
He also doesn't list Morgan Stanley, Boston Gulf, or any other experience from his linkedin page. But he does list "03/1998 – 09/2011 Registered Representative Cantella & Co. Inc."
Now, my first reaction was that this was a pretty huge lie, but on digging around more on Cantella and Bruce Fenton and from what I know of the financial advisor / broker dealer space, it seems like it is possible that while technically being a registered rep at Cantella, he could still market himself as Atlantic Financial. For example, see this link:
http://209.132.84.78/investing/fidelity-advisor-worst-days-followed-by-gains.pdfAlthough looking at his Finra history, Cantella is expressly listed as his employer:
http://brokercheck.finra.org/Report/Download/40521359 (if direct link does not work, enter 2286983 in the spot where it asks for name or CRD number.) And, again to try and be balanced, it also shows he was previously registered at Dean Witter Reynolds around the same time as his Linkedin profile claims he was a VP at Morgan Stanley. Dean Witter was a retail brokerage that merged with Morgan Stanley, a more prestigious and international full service investment bank. But that merger occurred well after Bruce was there, in 1997. So more puffery in trying to use what I view as a more prestigious name. Also, it is still odd the dates don’t match exactly, and that he is listed as having been registered with two other firms that appear nowhere on his linkedin bio.
This is why I say there is definitely some puffery in his bio. In my mind, there is a big difference in being a financial advisor “representative” affiliated with various firms over the years, going from being a young VP at Morgan Stanley to founding a global “full service investment and wealth management company founded in 1994 [that] was the first full service investment firm on the Internet.”
It also raises the question of why he left Cantella relationship. And it now appears that the reason for the form ADV listing zero amounts is that he must have left that relationship, to finally create his own advisory firm that needed to be individually registered. Those amounts may be zero because he was unable to bring clients over, or was not able to until he got registered.
Interstingly, that same Finra link lists several "Disclosure Events", all of which seem to be in the category of: "Financial". If you go to the full report, they appear to involve 3 instances of renegotiating debt with credit card companies. In the most recent, he managed to settle an amount due of $35,000 to Citibank for $6,100 in June of 2011. Interestingly, that is around the time he left Cantella (September 2011.)
Note that in his Reddit election AMA (
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2qqsnh/hi_reddit_rbitcoin_im_bruce_fenton_running_for/cn8s80f) he noted: "the only disclosable event on my FINRA U4 license is that I renegotiated about $20k in credit card debt in around 2006 I believe -- I actually dont think this was required to be disclosed as a material financial event but my compliance officer at the time encouraged me to do so to be sure." And the other two events that were listed on the Finra form were both in 2010. So he was off on the amount, the date, and the number of disclosures.
So the Reddit comment is an outright lie, and it does make you wonder why a successful money manager needed to renegotiate credit card debt in the two years before he left his employer of more than 12 years.
And to give him credit, that same report mentions in "Other Business Activities" his involvement with FDVT, advising private industry and governments on various things, and that he is a consultant for Bain Capital for activities related to the Middle East, where he is compensated on a flat fee basis. But we still have no proof that he "placed or sourced" $5 billion of investments over his career.
So that is the current summary. I’ve tried to be neutral, and am open to any response from Bruce or others on this booard. But I have to also say that at a minimum, the puffery and misstatements in his background, as well as his combative attitude on this board, don’t make me that optimistic that the Bitcoin Foundation is in much better hands.
