GPB Capital fraud attorney

National Securities Christopher Ortiz Has Private Placement Complaints

May 18, 2021 | by Staff Attorney

Advisor Christopher Ortiz (Ortiz), currently employed by National Securities (National Securities) has been subject to at least two customer complaints during the course of his career. According to a BrokerCheck report the complaints appear to concern unsuitable investments in private placements investments. These allegations may concern investments in GPB Capital Holdings (GPB Capital) related investments. National Securities is known to have approved their brokers to sell GPB Capital to their clients.

On February 4, 2021 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York (DOJ), and seven states filed separate simultaneous actions against GPB Capital and other defendants connected to the firm accusing it of being a Ponzi-like scheme. In a press release the SEC stated that it “charged three individuals and their affiliated entities with running a Ponzi-like scheme that raised over $1.7 billion…”

As reported by Bloomberg “If proved, [GPB] would be one of the largest such schemes to target individual investors since the massive frauds of Bernard Madoff and Robert Allen Stanford came to light.” The DOJ indicted David Gentile, the founder of GPB, Jeffry Schneider, the owner and CEO of Ascendant Capital LLC, and Jeffrey Lash, a former managing partner of GPB relating to the fraud. If convicted, the defendants each face up to 20 years’ imprisonment.[1]

New York Attorney General Letitia James accused GPB of “defrauding investors across the country out of more than $700 million through a Ponzi-like scheme that offered to pay investors generous monthly distributions they could never deliver.”[2] Further, “Investors put in more than $1.8 billion into GPB funds but were left without a single cent of profit,” said Attorney General James. Investor funds are alleged to have been spent to subsidize expensive toys like private planes, Ferrari sports cars, and luxury travel for the three defendants.

What’s GPB Worth Now? “According to court papers, GPB claimed to manage just $239 million as of December, despite raising the $1.8 billion.”[3] If true, this would reflect approximately 13% of investors’ total investments across all GPB funds. Continue Reading

Advisor Luke Johnson Accused of Selling Fraudulent GPB Capital Investments

December 8, 2019 | by Staff Attorney

Our firm represents multiple clients who have collectively lost millions in the sale of fraudulent GPB Capital Holdings (GPB Capital) related investments. Our firm has analyzed the GPB Capital offerings and believe that brokerage firms did not review these offerings in any significant detail. Any serious due diligence would have revealed that GPB Capital was an investment fraud scheme.

Advisor Luke Johnson (Johnson), according to BrokerCheck records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), has been accused of selling GPB Capital. Johnson is currently registered with member firm Coastal Equities, Inc. (Coastal Equities). In addition, Johnson disclosed seven total customer complaints. If you have been a victim of Johnson’s alleged misconduct our firm may be able to assist you in recovering funds.

Our firm’s investigation has found that brokerage firms failed to conduct due diligence and investigate multiple aspects of GPB Capital’s business including its senior management, fantastical business claims, and intra-fund lending practices. For instance, with respect to GPB Capital’s senior management the company was founded by David Gentile (Gentile). Had brokerage firms investigated GPB Capital’s senior manager it would have found that prior to founding GPB Capital, Gentile’s experience was as a CPA and company advisor with the accounting practice his family ran at Gentile Pismeny & Brengel, LLP (GP&B) in New York. Nonetheless, GPB’s PPMs claimed expertise in these areas. GPB Holdings II, LP, PPM, pg. 9 (Apr. 13, 2015) (“GPB’s senior management have a great deal of experience investing in the Automotive Retail, Managed IT Services and Life Sciences sectors.”).

GPB Capital Investment Recovery Options – Free Consultation

October 13, 2019 | by Staff Attorney

Our firm represents multiple clients who have collectively lost millions in GPB Capital Holdings (GPB Capital) related investments. Recently, class action lawsuits have been filed against GPB Capital with the goal of recovering investor funds. However, it is our law firm’s belief that remedies against the sales agents who peddled GPB Capital offerings provide investors with potentially quicker and better recovery options. Further, investors in many cases do not lose out from the ability to still collect from a class action resolution if such an event occurs.

Our firm has analyzed the GPB Capital offerings and believe that brokerage firms did not review these offerings in any significant detail. Our firm’s investigation has found that brokerage firms failed to conduct due diligence and investigate multiple aspects of GPB Capital’s business including its senior management, fantastical business claims, and intra-fund lending practices. For instance, with respect to GPB Capital’s senior management the company was founded by David Gentile (Gentile). Had brokerage firms investigated GPB Capital’s senior manager it would have found that prior to founding GPB Capital, Gentile’s experience was as a CPA and company advisor with the accounting practice his family ran at Gentile Pismeny & Brengel, LLP (GP&B) in New York. Nonetheless, GPB’s PPMs claimed expertise in these areas. GPB Holdings II, LP, PPM, pg. 9 (Apr. 13, 2015) (“GPB’s senior management have a great deal of experience investing in the Automotive Retail, Managed IT Services and Life Sciences sectors.”).

Any investigation would have revealed that GPB Capital is merely the private equity investment arm of a plain vanilla accounting practice. There is no evidence that GPB Capital’s senior management had the knowledge, industry experience, or investment experience to run the operations of a $1.8 billion dollar mult-asset strategy private equity fund and should not have been entrusted with investor funds. Our investigation has also identified a number of business claims that any review would have revealed could not have possibly be substantiated.

GPB Capital Investors Suffer Massive Losses of Up to 60% – Investment Recovery

June 23, 2019 | by Staff Attorney

Our firm represents multiple clients who have been recommended GPB Capital Holdings (GPB Capital) related investments. GPB invests in a variety of businesses but primarily in auto dealerships and waste management businesses. However, over the past year controversy has embroiled GPB Capital in a saga including multiple regulatory investigations and even an FBI referral which has left investors clueless to the fate of their investments.

Recently, GPB Capital released its own internal analysis and valuation of its funds without providing any evidence to support its findings. The results were not good for investors. As reported by InvestmentNews, the two largest funds offered GPB Holdings II and GPB Automotive Portfolio have declines of 25.4% and 39%. However, some of the other funds, like Armada Waste, fared much worse declining to only 32% of their original value. Again these valuations are provided by GPB Capital and only after a year of accounting mishaps.

As a background, financial advisers sold $1.5 billion of these high-risk private placements offered by GPB Capital Holdings. More than a year ago GPB Capital was supposed to file registration forms with the SEC for two of its largest funds to make certain accounting and financial disclosures required under the securities laws. However the company did not meet its deadline back in April 2018 and now over a year later has no firm date when annual reports for the two funds will be filed and the public has no clue what those values will look like.

Is GBP Capital A Ponzi Scheme? – FBI Now Investigating Firm

March 31, 2019 | by Staff Attorney

The law offices of Gana Weinstein LLP continue to report and update investors on their investigation into GPB Capital Holdings (GPB Capital). The firm currently represents multiple clients who have been recommended GPB Capital by brokers who were paid large commissions to sell the investment.

GPB Capital has been plagued with issues since last year when the firm stopped raising new money, lost an auditor, and engaged in a lawsuit with a former business partner Patrick Dibre (Dibre). GPB Capital complained that Dibre reneged on the sale to GPB Capital of certain auto dealerships causing the fund to lose $40 million according to GPB’s complaint. Dibre counterclaimed that GPB Capital is nothing more than “a very complicated and manipulative Ponzi scheme.” Then it was reported that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. (FINRA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched investigations in to GPB Capital.

Now, according to newsources, GBP Capital is being investigated by the FBI who made an unannounced visit to GPB Capital’s offices in early March 2019. None of this information is good news for investors who relied upon the due diligence efforts of their brokers in agreeing to invest in GBP Capital offerings.

Brokerage firms are unfortunately all too willing to subject their clients to the risks of investing in GPB due to the hefty fees and commissions these firms earn. When GPB Capital’s Automotive portfolio raised a total of $369.2 million from more than 3,800 investors it paid out $43.4 million, or 11.75%, in commissions. 7% of that amount goes directly to the recommending broker’s pocket. There are as many as 60 brokerage firms that sold these funds and among the largest of those firms are Royal Alliance Associates Inc., Sagepoint Financial Inc., FSC Securities Corp. and Woodbury Financial Services Inc.