Articles Tagged with AEI 2007 Venture Investments

This article continues my in depth look into how unsuspecting investors are sold speculative private placements.

While investors were told that Fisker Auto’s prospects were fantastic, nothing could have been further from the truth.  In February 2012, the DOE loan had been frozen after $192 million had been given to the company because it hadn’t hit certain milestones with its Karma car product.  The last payment Fisker had received from the DOE was in May 2011.  Yet, according to investors, Advanced Equities and First Allied continued to sell Fisker Auto shares without disclosing that the DOE was no longer backing the venture, presumptively because the auto makers chances of success had grown increasingly slim.

From December 2011 into 2012, Advanced Equities increasing began to run into fundraising problems.  As Fisker Auto fell into a increasing number of technical, delivery, and political problems with its cars the car maker’s ability to attract new capital plummeted.  Yet, the company still needed money.  So the brokerage firms turned to threatening investors by telling them that unless they agreed to invest more money into Fisker Auto their current shares will be diluted and their preferred stock will be converted to common stock.

In August, I wrote an article about how the brokerage firm Advanced Equities, Inc. (Advanced Equities) and First Allied Securities, Inc. (First Allied) sold nearly $1 billion in private placement offerings linked to clean technologies (clean-tech) to investors that have since become nearly worthless.   Some of those investors have now come forward alleging that the brokerage firms did not conduct proper due diligence for selling the private placements.  The private placements sold by the two brokerage firms include Advanced Equities GreenTech Investments, LLC, AEI 2007 Venture Investments, LLC, AEI 2010 Cleantech Venture, LLC, and AEI Fisker Investments, LLC.

One of the most prominent underlying investments in Advanced Equities private placement offerings portfolio was Fisker Automotive, Inc. (Fisker Auto).  How Fisker Auto was sold to investors offers an unflattering view into how some in the brokerage industry still peddle worthless and speculative securities to unsuspecting investors to enrich themselves at investor’s expense.

Fisker Auto spent over a billion dollars, much of it from investors and a government loan, to invest and develop its cars.  Ultimately Fisker Auto delivered only 2,000 cars and is on the verge of bankruptcy.  Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) started an auction on its loan made to Fisker Auto back in 2010.  The DOE is still owed $168 million under the loan terms but put the loan on the auction block after “exhausting any realistic possibility” that Fisker Auto could repay the loan.  The question is how did Fisker Auto receive $1 billion in the first place?

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