Securities Lawyers Blog
Former Sandlapper Securities, LLC (Sandlapper) and Independent Financial Group, LLC (Independent Financial) broker Kyusun “Kenny” Kim (Kim) has been subject to at least 23 customer complaints and one regulatory action. According to a BrokerCheck report many of the customer complaints concern alternative investments and direct participation products (DPPs) such as non-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs), oil & gas programs, annuities, and equipment leasing programs. The attorneys at Gana Weinstein LLP have extensive experience handling investor losses caused by these types of products.
In June 2018 FINRA barred Kim from the securities industry after making findings of unsuitable recommendations to numerous senior customers to concentrate their retirement assets and liquid net worth in speculative and illiquid securities. FINRA found that Kim recommended customers to invest in speculative and illiquid investments that were inconsistent with the customers’ moderate or conservative investment objectives and risk tolerances. FINRA found that these recommendations caused Kim’s customers to have an undue concentration of the customers’ retirement assets and liquid net worth in speculative and illiquid investments. FINRA also found that Kim falsified client information on important forms by entering inaccurate and inflated net worth, liquid net worth, and investment experience figures for certain customers so that they appeared eligible to purchase speculative investments.
Our firm often handles cases involving direct participation products, Non-Traded REITs, oil and gas offerings, equipment leasing products, and other alternative investments. These products are almost always unsuitable for investors. In addition, the brokers who sell them are paid additional commission in order to hype inferior quality investments which provides a perverse incentives by brokers to create an artificial market for products that no honest advisor would sell.
According to studies, non-traded REITs have historically have underperformed even safe benchmarks, like U.S. treasury bonds – meaning that non-traded REITs provide paltry investment returns considering the risk an investor takes. Alternative investment products like oil and gas partnerships, REITs, and equipment leasing programs are rarely, if ever, appropriate for investors due to their high costs, illiquidity, high risks, and huge redemption charges of the products, if they can be redeemed at all. Investors often fail to understand that they have lost money until many years after agreeing to the investment.
Unfortunately, due to the high commissions brokers earn on these products they sell them to investors who cannot profit from them. These products have become so popular among brokers without providing any benefit to investors that many states now limit investors from investing more than 10% of their liquid assets in Non-Traded REITs. Many states impose these limitations because its understood that that they provide virtually no benefit to investors in relationship to their risks.
Kim entered the securities industry in 1997. From February 2006 until March 2016 Kim was registered with Independent Financial. From March 2016 until April 2017 Kim was registered with Sandlapper out of the firm’s San Diego, California office location.
Investors who have suffered losses are encouraged to contact us at (800) 810-4262 for consultation. At Gana Weinstein LLP, our attorneys are experienced representing investors who have suffered securities losses due to the mishandling of their accounts. Claims may be brought in securities arbitration before FINRA. Our consultations are free of charge and the firm is only compensated if you recover.