I

May 2, 1987
I

of this dmmmt is to recollect a l l activities that I've been

involved w i t h i n Financial Planning and the formation of Financial Ma~gement
G r m p , to verify and doarment seine of the activities that I've been involved in
to date.
WpupOSe

I ' m afraid that as w e go further and further there w i l l be a need for such
information especially w i t h what has h a m this past week w i t h our corporate
officers and board. F i r s t I would l i k e to begin back in ti-&very beginning so
that the f u l l scope of our activities seem to f i t into ane place and also so
that
of the issues that have mme up are tied into what has happmd up to
this point.

First of a l l , I started in the Financial Plback in 1982. After

getting out of the amtracting kusiness I took six weeks and traveled across
the country and came back and decided to get into the financial services
Being that several relatives have had dealings w i t h IDS, Investors
industry.
Diversified -ices,
I called the local branch in
upon finding the
manager Mmed R & e r t Kauffinan. Bab spent -time
withme, decided he w i s h e d
to hire me, and that began the process.
I was actually licensed in 1982 for securities and l i f e and was p t under the
mnagement of Bob Kauffman. Shortly thereafter, I would say probably in Jwe
or July, Bab was pmmDted and took a division in Tampa, Florida. Myself and
)three o r four other individuals who were under m g e m e n t decided that w e
wanted to fom a g r w p together so w e talked to anather district manager,
Staren H. and decided that, i f he would allm, we kcdd like to plt an office
together w i t h him.
A t this time w e did not have an office and he was mrkjng
out of a sndll office in Millersville. 'Ihe people who were with me was myself,
Mike Hartlett and Alan Loss. The three of us were very, very large producers,
especially Mike and Alan.
The three of us were probably larger than Steve's
district a t that time, so a t that point we located an office a t 255 Wer
Avenue, we walked under Staren H. district which increased his inmme by a t
least 30% to 40% pthat -&ion.

After being involved in the business I decided that firrancial planning should
be wre abjective and fee based, so I became one of the larger fee producers
using fees as w e l l as mmnisSion incane. A t about the same time, I became
involved i n the IntermtiAssociation of Financial Planners. A t that time
the local chapter was just being fonwd and I volunmy services to help
on the board.
Menbrs of the board, a t that time, was just being formed and
headed by John Herr.
I became m t i v e vice president and virtually helped
run the chapter and
build it to its largest m
p
. lhat gave m e
as f a r
the apportunity t o meet other people, broaden my horizons and *tian
as the financial planning h3ustry and just haw the hleperdent planners f i t
into the stream of the industry. I had quite a b i t of activity and did alot
for the local chapter and became very involved.

helm

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mer the next several years I made a very gwd living. I was never a very big
pmducer, althmgh one of the bigger ones in the Harri.skurg division. But I
was not the biggest, but the premier fee producer for the division and was om
of the leading in the camtry a t that time. I shortly became kmmledgable of
the other pmfucts available in the financial services industry and learned
very quickly that it w a s virtually inpossible to have one canpany manufacture
and produce ccpnpetitive products across the line. A t this the I was setting
l
e Amstrong
up a dhmr meeting for the IFP that was going to sbax2ase A
who was one of the premier planners i n the cumtry. She was very visible and
very widely m. I set up a dinner meeting for her khich attracted close of
om hundred
p r o f e s s i o n a l s a n d o t h e r p e o p l e t o a ~ . l h i s w a s f o u r o r five
times larger that any ather meetirg the chapter had ever had. A f t e r the
meeting I was involved in a -ion
w i t h Alex regarding the financial
planning h l d z y and my aspirations of what was cutside of a pmpriety
envimmnmt.
I told her that I was thinking of lMking a m e and asked her i f
she had any suggestions of wha to q e a k to. A t this point in time, we were all
i n Butler Avenue and Bob Kaufhan was in Georgia, running a division of ID6
back there.
He, a t this time, had become one of the l a q e s t divisional
n g e r s and had shwn very high pm&active
recruith-q skills. He was running
one the largest shop= intheScuthEastandwasbexdtqveryprofitable for
II1S. Alex suggested that I c a l l a gentlwen by the name of John &&le who was
then president of Financial Services COT. a bmkerjdealer based in A t l a n t a ,
Georgia. A t this the Bob Kauffman was probably, as unfamiliar i f not mre
unfamiliar, of the irdependent e n v k m e n t available to the Fimrcial Services
Industry. Specifically Financial Planners.

I phaned Bob a n d t o l d h i m t h a t I w a s ~ i n g t o l o a l c a n d ~ ~ t e l s e w a s l ~ o u t
there."
Before this time, a ccuple months prior, I atb&& a career
conference in Florida with IRS. A t one p i n t I was in a roam w i t h Bob Ihufhan
and R
' mt TUmr, who was the biggest divisicmal l ~ ~ g aet this
r
time with ID6.
I began to disc;uss my dissatisfaction with the ccmparry and the way that they
op=rate and I suggested to them that it pmbably would not be too difficult to
duplicate an organization instead of bebg built araYd a proprietary that was
built solely amund a non-proprietary product. A t the time they both leaked a t
w and I don% m m a k e r i f they l a w , k u t the idea really didn't redlly
interest them, and it just rolled off their shailders. Right after this
meeting is whenIhadthedinnermeetingvithAlexandIsetupthemeetingin
A s I usually did, I always leaked a t Bob Kaufhan as my mentor. H e
virtually w w o f f t h e s t r e e t s a n d m m e a w a y t o w m y i n a w a y
that I never
I a u l d w. I always respected Bob as a very good
sal.esnan, seeming to have a very high financial intellect and I looked up to
him as he taught me alot. So I got on the phone and told him I was going to
v i s i t an imkpn%& planner i n Atlanta.
A t this time, Bob was bemning
dissatisfied with the management of ID6 and was not very happy with the way
they were using him to build areas. Vihen the areas would become profitable to
him they waild mehimtoanotherdistressedamatobebuiltup. Sohewas
doing a l l the work and ID6 was making a l l the mmey because they waild plt i n a
m a ~ g e rfor less money and so on and so forth.
Atlanta.

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On Nw&
27 or 28 of 1985, I had a meeting w i t h Bob I c a u f m and Mike
Hartlett a t 1 4 x b n r s m u n t on the Rahrerstawn M,
Ianaster, PA. 'me
pupose of the meeting was to find art i f we a u l d collectively p r t together
xmething in Iancaster w i t h regards to f h i a l planning. I wwld say that
e t i n g was mre of an effort on my part than anyone especially Mike Hartlett.
Mike was, a t this time, also inrlependent, l e f t ID6 anl follckied me to FSC along
w i t h Bob.
?he meetingwas on themorning a t 9:00 a.m. and we dkmxxxdwhat
options we had as far as w i n g sanething tcgether in Iancaster. I guess the
bsic reason for the meeting was to see i f Mike Hartlett wished to do sanething
together w i t h us. A t this time I was qmating my practice, Mike was aperating
his practice, anl the only
we had in amumn w a s a reception man
adjoining ax offices.
A t thistimeBobsawthatifwecculdputsawthbg
together in Lancaster he omld pmbably f u l f i l l same of his recruiting
-ts,
giving h i m a place to actually xecmit people to rather than
using FSC in Atlanta. So that began the process of w i n g together a shop in

lancster and Cerrtral PA.

I b e s a n t o recruit fran that point forward into our so called plarvling firm.
A t this time the plarvling firm was going to be caprised of financial
Sane of the f i r s t pecplethatItall#dtowasMonaRishel,Dick
and Bab Lnrg. I spoke to other plannezs-about joining our firm and
then I got the idea of adding other professionals mainly legal, a m - ,
& estate and ma@ insurance. It was then that I got the idea for the one
stop financial firm.
Tbmeitseemedapprmt-thatitwasimportanttohave
a l l the individuals working tagether collectively
manage one financial

planners.

-,

'

'affairs.
It didn't seem that d i f f i d t to accaylish that i f yau had the riqht
irdividuals willing to take the risk of a t t m p t h q such a project sod who had
the clientele where they didn't have to rely on attracting new clientele.
Well, ~ t h i n g l e d t o a M t h e r a n d w e s o o n b e g a n t o r e n U i t ~ a t ~ ~ a n d
sizable grcup of individuals. I prcbably was responsible for d t i n g 90% of
the local people and artside pecple, Mike was mrking with Rick Volp in
F h i l a d e l m who he w o w w i t h a t ID6, and a hcst of others. T h e i n i t i a l core
was myself, Mike, Mma, Dick Sherisahn.
A t thistimeIranintoSattRobertsonattheZhreeMilelhsewhowasworking
with Asset Mamgement.
I expressed the idea to him and he became interested
and became one of wr pecple. I also talked to Gmmlyn Royer who was w i t h Pru
Bache and she was interested in joinhg. By February we had a fairly large
group of people who were willing to ammit. F i r s t thing we had to do was find
facilities and Mike f d the place available a t the OregcPl Pike location which
was just urder -on.
A t f i r s t we were looking for 2,000 square feet to
hcuse f w or five i n a i v i d ~ ~ LA~t. this time I talked to Tim Lanza, people a t
the legdl firm, and Danny Beqer as f a r as doing me thing with real
estate.
It was s q p x e 3 to beanaperationfinancedandsqportedbyFSC.
horn December until May FSC was pranking furd to f h m c e the aperation. We
nedd start up funks for fur nit^^?=, caymter systems, salaries for myself and
Mike for ranaging the -tion.
Mat happerred &ing this t h was that FSC
was constantly premising us financing and we had yet to receive any actual
m ~ n e yand the invoices d t t e d w e r e never paid by FSC.

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Bob then told rn that he may be willing to go intD the meeting w i t h me under
the asslrmption that I did not tell them who he was o r who he was w i t h . I
called J&n m l e and told him I wanted to cane dawn and v i s i t him, being
referred by Alex and he was very nice mer the @mne, giving me a cordial
invitation to cane down and actually had me set up the meeting w i t h Ray S m i t h
who was one of the sales ~ g e r s .I set up a two day meeting w i t h myself and
this anonymxls person, Bab KaufBnm.
W e spent two daysatFSCandwhat
essentially happened is that they became infatuated w i t h Bob's recruiting
skills.
On the spat they offered Bcb a position within the a m p n y as far as
recruiting and head of sales manqement of FSC.
I resigned fm m6 January 1985.
Bob m i n d a t ID6 and fnm Octaber to
March w a s negatiating his position and pay and his -tion
w i t h FSC. By
March he actually decided to resign fmn ID6 and he was a k a r h d into the
corporate structure of FSC. January Ist I resigned fmm IS. I was Upstairs
w i t h Mike Harllett, sharing an office space and the rest of district w i t h Alan
Lms was still dwEbks.
A t this time, I began to build my independent
practice of Financial Planning. Basically I took 95% of my clients fmm IC6
and began working w i t h them. Bob began working i n the national recruiting for
FSC and started attracting IDS people to FSC.

1985 I had became w i n t e d w i t h my business l i f e , not

learning
lonely being hkprk3ent and I became frustmted. I knew that
no one in Lancaster was doing a very high quality m i c e rqardbg Financial
laming and Financial Services.
Tb me, lancaster seemedtobeahighly
By

the

Fall of

m,

attractive market w i t h alot of wealth being spread cut amDng alot of different
players.
No one was being creative
r " lg their efforts it was just three
o r four brokerage houses, insurance agents, banks and irdependent planners but
iw one had a very strcarg p i t i o n or d a b a x e in the financiae services

-.

I visited w i t h Bcb Kauffman in the Fall of 1985 as I usually did every ccuple
mths ard told him I wished to do scwthing else. A t t h a t time he asked me i f
I wanted t o cane dam to Atlanta and help him work on the concept of o n p n y
awned shops.
W h a I was dawn there, he mmtioned severdl positions i n the
corpration that I may be ini n and he set up a meeting w i t h me and
Steve Franklin.
Stwe m t l y needed smmw to m a ~ g eh i s national sales
office so khj dawn there I spoke to him, just t o verify w h a t was available.
A t this meeting, Steve Fmnklin more of less indicated t h a t I was a ~~kuned
cut
who was just leaking for a place to go. Ncrthing ever happen& and I
left the meeting w i t h very l i t t l e respect for Steve Franklin.
Bob offered me a position w i t h i n his mnpany owned store, writing cases doing
p l m , doingsaneotherthings. CIhatwasearlyOctober. F o r t h e n e x t t h r e e o r
four weeks I prepared myself, relwtmtly, for the transition and moved to
Atlanta and tried to maintain clients up he^^ as well, and plrsue whatever Bob
was doing down in Atlanta. A s th went on I f e l t I really didn't wish to move
away fmn the area and that maybe the opportunity down there wasn't what I
thought it was, o r wasn'twhat Bab said it was.

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Bob ~ ~ a u f f u n n
was the liaison and -tly
was being directed by Stare
Franklin ard Jdyl m l e . F'ran what I have learned over the past several years
was that they never really interded to finance the aperation brt they were
strirqirq us along ard using us to recruit other people to the operation.
After we rexuited ten o r more people it became apparent t h a t Mike o r myself
g e an operation. We also
did not have the managing skills required to l ~ ~ such
learned we l o s t our financial backing, so we had to figure out what to do with
A t this time we decided to raise the capital a.u-selves,
finance the
financing.

And
operation auselves with quity we raised thmqb the planners.
essentially we learned that no one i n the industry, or very few actually awn
their awn business but are only a distrikrtion for a f i n a d a l product. W e a l l
have seen bmkr/dealers b e b g b a q h t and sold for very sizable m t s of
m y , usually in the vacinity of $1 of quity for $1 of gross ccrmnission
inmne.
We began to see t h a t we were seeing anyi&em hran $1 million of gross
amnksion imxms per year w i t h the grcrup that we had. In the grarp was Ken
Ray and some very m t i v e and talented people.
cur m e e t h p and discussiuns d c h w e r e very long, durable and
mpn L&omber t o May I probably spent every other evening with Bob
tiresame.
i n Atlanta trying to pt this deal together.

Tbx@mt

L e t me go over a couple of other things that had happened up to that time that
I f d ljke mentianed in this document, before I fozget. Back in the sunmer of
u
s
e of
1985, I was contacted by Jdyl Fhilips fmn Blue Pall National Bank. m
)ny v i s i b i l i t y w i t h the local chapter of the IFP J d m wanted to call me and look
a t the o p t i c u s of Blue Bas11 National Bank becane involved in Financial
Planning.
Jchn called a meeting w i t h me ah3 I believe he was looking for
scanmne to head a Financial deparbnent with inside Blue Pall National Bank o r
contract w i t h s ~ n e o n e outside. I had 1-1/2 bar with J d m and his suborbant,
whcan I can't remember his name, I believe it was Joe. H e was the vice
president of the trust m t , I believe. m
y a f t e r the meeting they
did not have the fiath o r the confidence that I was the right person or they
didn't believe t h a t this was really what they wanted to do. But I have never
M firm them s i n .

Fall of 1985, before our initial meeting, a f t e r I &idea

that I was not goin g
t o relocate in Atlanta, I began to look for other options in
One of
those were t h a t a couple people pt me in tmd w i t h several banks. One was
Joe S. with -th
National Bank and another was Meridian Bank. Both of
those irdividuals received
calls fmn peoplekl I did business w i t h
stating that I was looking for s a n & h g
ard asking that they give me an
btemiew. None of them !could wen goive me an interview. I received a letter
fmn C c m k m e d t h s
t
a
m t h a t they had no pasitions c p a a t this time, but
they would keep my ram on f i l e .
Fmm Meridian, I don't believe I wen
received a letter.
aLis is oneof t h e r e a s o n s t h a t I d o n f t h a v e v e r y ~
respect for banks, or people whowork inbanks. I d o n f t w i s h t o d w e l l into
this subjed, but because of several of these eposides I just don't have mch
respect for bankers, o r banks what so ever.

-.

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was going to receive 60,000 shares, I was to receive 40,000 shares andMike
was to receive 40,000. Also, Mike ard I w e r e to receive $3,000 per month and
Bob $5,000 per mnth. Bab and I had a deal as I did not believe he shaild have
more of the canparry than I because I pit it together. We had an agreement
&ereby
I could buy 10,000 shares of his 20,000 a t anytime a t cost so we would
both have 50,000 shares. I had papers drawn u p t o that, however, whenwe began
t o have problens, I l e f t things drop by the wayside.

Back in Februaq 1986, I became g o d friends w i t h Mary Lynn D i F o l c a , Kevin's

sister ard Mike's wife. We were always g c d friends, but back then when Kevin
left, we
very close because I spent alot of tim with them. Mary Iynn
was a t the time, 30 years old with three children, and she was always very tied
dam with the kids, basically a housewife. She never really had a job, never
worked.
I t w a s h a r d forherbecauserrmtof her other frienlswerecutworking
and had 01-eers. I a s k e d h e r i f s h e W d l i k e t o M p m e o u t f o r a f e w h o u r s
a we& doing general clerical an3 typing. She was very excited. I tho~@tit
was a chance for me to get S(II*~thirqs done ard I liked Mary Lynn alot d we
got along and I thx&t it was a chance for me to get a few extra things done.
I took her on in February and before too long she was working 30 hours a week.
She had a babysitter lined up for the kids, ard it was very encanraging for me
to see her do this because it gave her the confidence for the f i r s t time that
she could do spnethhq other than just have children. She was having a great
time and I was having a great time and.= enjoyed working with Baeh other. A t
that time, Bob invited .Mike and I down to the annual confererms in !Iwsm,
Arizorn ard w i t h the conferenoe amangments we were allawed to take saneone,
such as your spouse. I asked Mary Iynn i f she wanteA to go and I don't believe
she was ever on a plane before and she asked Mike and he said it waild be good
for her t o meet scme of these peqle and get: involved w i t h a career. We ended
up d a m a t Tucson ard that was i n A p r i l 2 a n d w e s p e n t f m o r f i v e d a y s
there.
Upon meeting Bob ItoldhimIwasbringingMaryLynnoutandIhew
from the start that this was a sore spot. First of a l l she was married d he
couldn't urdershtd what she was doing cut there w i t h me. Semnl of a l l he
didn't appreciate the whole s i b t i a n when he met her he said scauethbq to the
effect that she looked very young.
After the secand day w e were a l l g c d
ard she was getthq a l a q very w e l l w i t h W and Pam. In fact, Pam
friends
confided things in her that I kmm Pam never told anyone. It looked as thcaigh
they liked, or a t least pretmxkd to like Mary Lynn and so anyway we all had a
Bcb, myself, andMikespent&of
w r t i m inindividualprivate
good time.
meetings trying t o pt this deal together and work cut the details -idly
with FSC.

think it was back a t this time-we r e a l i z e d that Bob was probably going to
fran management and cannit and cane up to Lancaster. I think one of the
reasons whyMaryLynn andIbecameveryclosewasthatsheremindedmesonuch
of my mother i n t&
way that she handled her kids, family and I became
infatuated w i t h that.
I liked her alot. Wt haFpened was that Mike and Bob
resented the fact that we had so rmch fun while we worked. We got m r k done,
but we went out t o lunch for an hour or so and we really enjayed things. To
I

resign

'

them that had no place in business. For me, as 1as I got my work done, I
f e l t better about my work ard it worked art for the best. mis w a s a problem
an3 w i l l ccmne up later.
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into the building, they wmld not a l l m Mary Iynn to be back in my

haever, Nancy A. 's desk was right ma& up against Mike's door. lhis
start& all the problem w i t h Mary Lynn. She saw that and she wished to work
for me, and they were not goiiig to let her. It just started problem fmn day
one and it had a tmmxdms impact on the relationship between me, Mike and
Bob.
'Ibis was the straw that broke the camels back as f a r as cur relationship
was wncen-ed.
Ever sincethathKpenedwestoFpedcamunicating. matwas
the f i r s t m e i n trying to rescind m y i n p r t a n d m y o m t m l s o f a r a s t h e
campany was c0ncxm-d.
As f a r as the staff was ooncerned they had a feeling
that the staff should be treated as dirt and made this urderstxm3 many times to
me
this is against a l l my philasophy of life. For months, because of this
attitude, Mere were problems with the staff. It was because of this t h a t the
staff didn't respect them, and it was just a formths.
We w e d

section,

July and August, Bab w a s still d m in Atlanta and I was doing

the work i n lancaster. Fmn J a n u a ~
until
~
Januray I took one day off
for Memrial Day, one day for July 4th, one day for labor Day and cme day for
'Ihanksgiving.
Mike H a r t k t t took off two of three becks, leaving m e to tend
the shop.
I was always the care doing all the work, recruiting, stock
offering,labor m a t t e r s , drew up all the amtmcts, drew up the offering
w i t h the help of the attorney. It was fiwry t h a t I was the only one
raising the mney
probably 808 of the furls. I was the only care of the
principals who had outsiders investing i n the canpany. Ihe most they did: Bob
Kauffman raised $5,000 frun his father in law, so not d y did I pit my cwn
mney i n I risked that of my clients. But they w e r e willing to a a q t t h a t up
front.
A carple times it came down to either me getting the m m q fmn my
clients o r us not having the financial a b i l i t y to pay off sane of the capital
resources that we had.
W i n g June,

most of

~~

W i n g %pteubr we began to have pmblems w i t h Mazy Lynn and the staff and
me.
'Ihis was the beginning of them hying to reduoe and dilute my control of
the canpany as f a r as input was cancerned.
It was a very emotional and
d
r
a
m expsriexe a f t e r a l l t h e w o r k I d i d t o p l t t h i s a l l t o g e t h e r t o f i n d
those twowere trying to plsh me cut. Itrsachedthepointinoctoberor
Noventer where they actually asked me i f I wanted to "get out." 'Ihqr indicated
that I was not right for m a ~ g & ,
m a ~ g e m e n twas nat right for me, t h a t I
wasn't having fun and all this and that. Mnst of t h a t was due to their action
as f a r as their trying to dilute me and weaken my umfidenz. lhey c0Ntantly
made fun of me i n f m n t of all the other planners a t meetings and it was just
ugly.
'Ihey also t r i e d to internqj my relationship w i t h Mary LyM w h i c h was
ruthirq mxe than a very p e r s a d , deep fri-p.
No care lamws this, kR the trauma was so heavy that I went mxier the care of a
Hospital, beginning N m m h e r and I was suffering a
psychologist a t St. J@
severe case of depression. Eecause of d z @ r e n i a being f a v d in my family,
I was not afraid to go seek psydmlogical camseling. I was on medication for
three months.

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In September they had it in their minds that they were going to get r i d of Mary
Lynn.
And they tried every opporbmity, finally in N o v e n h r a week before
Thanksgiving, they fired Mary LyM. W i t h o u t cause, for no reason, other than
they just wanted her art ard felt she was incapable of whatever. It actually
reached the point wfiere Bob andMikewhenarnurr].politickingthebrokersto
s q p r t them t h a t M a r y L y M w a s n u t d o i n g h e r j o b w h i c 3 1 w a s m t t r u e . Shehad
the canplete w
r
t of a l l the brokers. Maybe a t times there was a case wfwe
sawom was unhappy w i t h her perfommce, but in general it was a ploy, a plot,
fabricated by Mike and Bcb.

their attarpt to lmy me out and get rid of me so far as my Oontrol and my
interest, I held cut reluctantly often times mxlering i f I were going to give
in an3 by 0lristma.s I decided I wnuld stick it cut. 'Ihere
not other
alternatives, kR the nwney they offered me to get out was $2,50 a share which
canes out to $100,0000.
Iwantednopartsof it, s o b y J a n u a r y I d e c i d e d t o
stay.

After

Bob h a d s e v e r a l c a n v e r ~ a t i ~ ~ l ~ w i t h B o b I c n g s a y i n g t h a t h e w a s ~ i e d a b o u t m y
v
i
a
l efforts and that I was heocming slack. Ihe whole reason was
that they were hamering me daJnandbeatingmeupineverywaytheycculd,
cktmying my confidence. AftarIspenttimeandeffortardIbelieved inso
nu& of Wmt I'd done, and they were trying to take this away franme and get
me art of the picture.

Thraqh N o v and
~
Decc&er
there were meetings between myself, Scott
R c h r k x m , Alan Loss, Bob Long and (luo1ynFlayer rqanibq the activities and
the ~ S t y l e s o f M i k e a n d B o b . ~ w e r e v e r y ~ , w e r e n o t v e r y
trusting and I was always in the middle between the managerwt and financial
planners.
I had relatiMships with everyone and I believe that this -tend
Bob and Mike ard they tried t o g e t m e c u t o f thepicture, kttheplanners
wxlld not allcu this because the planners did not trust Bob and Mike w i t b a r t
havingme to keep them on balance.

I raised most of

the nomy, d t e d lnost of the people, p t the offering

together, pit the ampter system tcgether, workedwithall the
ampter softwa??=, and a c t u d l l y . came up with the name Firnncial Management
(;mup and the idea of having a l l the subsidiaries doing different things. My
involvement was very deep, pmbably deeper than anyone in the organization.

memo-

W - m I w a s p l t t i n g a l l t h i s t o g ~ , I w a s i n ~ w i t h A l n Y u l a tItalked
.
abaR having nnr@age,
banking a part of a t I was doing. Nathing ever
happened bebeen the two of us, but in ~anuaryI received a call fran Al askhq
me to see i f I a d d place any mrtgages in the east coast. H e was willing to
pay me xmghly one half a point and this was a t a time, because of the
activities of Bob and Mike, that I tku$~tI would give this a t r y to give me
sane secwity. Should saoething f a i l i n the canpany, I would have sanething to
f a l l back an. A t this time I involved Scott IInbertscn and Bob ~cngand I told
them we would form a three way w
p and we wnuld work an a real estate
project on cur awn. ' I h e r e a s o n I t o l d n o o n e a b c u t t h i s w a s t h a t t h i s w a s m y
ace card in case Bob and Mike ever really threw n~ out. I was mt going to give
&em any r e l a t i m s h i p , and I j u s t TIE&&
sane d t y .
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we were really doing was lwkirg for 1of 2 millicm dollars and up to
refinance or finance new and existing realestateprojects. Wemadeafew
calls, finding that ax rates are very anpetitive.
A l was mre of less
letting me get plqged into the major Savings and Loans and Inswaxe
mnpanies.
Wefam3cuttherewereveryfewpeopleinthearea, i f a n y a t a l l
who could a q u b s the terms. We began having a great deal of success and what
we found was that almcst everyone was allawing us to bid on their project. We
created a campany called C!rekive Finance Caopany so that we would not a p x e
Fm; t o any l i a b i l i t i e s as far as cur activities. W e agreed fmn the beginning
that FIG wxild receive a m t a g e of cur activities ~IXI
we figured 15%was
f a i r since we actually mnufacturd the pIoduct wfiere FIG *en cut and used
othex manufactured products. We didn't feel they were entitled to a 20 30%
split.
What

of cur amtmzts was w i t h Tony Bongoivi in New York. He a t one time dated
Scott's
sister apprmhmtely ten years ago.
Scott maintained a loose
relationship w i t h Tony, calling him one= in a while regarding business m a t t e r s
and business activities. Scott called Tony one day atcut a real estate project
that he i3mught
Tony said no, but he my have another
project that we would be interested in. Scott asked m e to go up to New York
with him to talk abcxlttheprojectand1 askedwhat itwas. He indicatedit
was a mwie.
I was very reluctant and hesitant to do this because nnvies t o
me, tax shelters, scans, not very econcmic type investment. Me being very
comxvative was not attracted, but I decided to go anyway just to get cut of
town, mre or less just to get away.
(Xle

I got up t h e n I was totally amazed a t the caliber and the people who we
were associating w i t h .
What I found cut was that we were working w i t h the
leading recolding s h d i o in the world. T h e r e d t i a l s , their acccnplidxm~ts
were @enmaml- they were just it. I'm not going to spend alat of time of
this because just the battcm line is what is inporbnt here. After seeing the
project wfien I lcoked a t what Tony was doing, and fran a business perspective
there were just so nary elewnts in this project that were just truly amazing
to me so far as distribution and markeI5.g and riskand eveqtAi.q else.
Bottan line was a pruluct that was worth 15 to 20 million dollars being made
for 4 million w i t h the ability to be one of the -1
movie, video projects
of the years.
biten

a l l ycu have the leading recoxding studio in the world working on the
scan3 for the project that was going to include a follaw up of Tony's previous
band who- was BM Javi who was alreacty one of the hottest thing in nusic as far
as alkum sales.
Then you have the fact that he was going to digitize the
recording which was never done before in the nnvie industzy a t a time when the
vidm market is just going bananas. N o t only that, hut the label that signed
the banl m MN.
You put a l l this together and ycu've got a penmend
business w i t h alot of apportunity
F i r s t of

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seeing this, I ammitt& myself to the project not kmwing h o , where or haw we
were going t o raise 4 million dollars but I beliwed in the project so mplch. I
guess because I saw alot of the same elements used in F% in this project, and
even more.
I got instincts when I raised money for Em; I was still very
concerned with the risk elements to my investo~sbut when I looked a t this
project the risk was even less. Iess risk, m r e protection with this project
so I believed in this project. We spent seven or eight weeks developing the
packaging the product for the investors, things have hapxwd during that time
that f e l l into place perfectly
the a r t i c l e in lblling Stone, the marketing.

is May 4 t h a t 4:30 a.m. and there is no d a b t inmyminlwith the articles

in Rolling Stone that we have the money for the m i e . lhat project in itself
w i l l pmbably p t us in the forefront of the n
e
industry within
It

eight W.
It is mird b o g g l i n g a s f a r a s h t o n c a a e o f t h i s , b u t t h e
project is done, we did sanethjrq, we did not use Fm;, they w i l l receive no
I guess what I'm saying ik that because of the way Bob and Mike treated
split.
me or plshed me to go cut and do things, that did not involve Em; and I did not
feel that they did not deserve to becarre a part of these things. Fran the
beginning I knew Em; was going to get their piece.

L e t me go back to an earlier developlwt a m c e m h g the E!mker+er.

We of
course thought in the begthat we would becarre ax own broker/dealer.
However, after long, bard discussion, we were to the pint of getting a license
for brokerldealer, we decided we did not have the admhktmtive capacity to
N f i l l what we waild need to a-lish
the broker/dealer. Back in Nwember,
-,
Bcb started soliciting other -/dealer,
l c o k h ~for
~ three things;
service, high pay cut, and
equity.
We knew that we had t o own our
brolerldealer kusiness.
'Ihere were two players that we came a
m one was
Iiikkml-m cut of wshhqhl DC and the other was Financial P l a m e ? s Group
which really involves sane of the premier financial planners of the cumtry,
B i l l I b q l e r , Wayne Webster, so on and so forth.

The Iceogler grarp was strcng, large, y a q and they were doing nxghly 20
million dollars of gross canmission incane per year but there were saoe people
in the organizaticm we did not feel ccmfortable with. Hikbaxd Brrx~nwas a new
start up, starting up when we did, was a s p l i t f m a previous bmker/Mer in
D.C.,
that involved f m a syrdiotor to a -/dealer
that no one knew
anything a?xut. However, they really enticed us w i t h a very attractive equity
deal.
Bob maintained most of the cmmmications and mmt of the research
involved in this project.
It was brcqht to us in January w h i c h was IpuFplly
20% of their stock . w i t h 90% payout , territorial with override for aqthirg
that w e did.

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0fthethingsImtshaildbedoneisthatscmeaneMdbedownthere
a t their t m d i q department, along with the capability of FSC. I tried
to get people down there several tims and I suggestd Qmlyn Royer because of
what had haFpened to her.
Finally Peter Pnneros and Ken Ray bent down, and
this was probably during U a x h . Anyway, this whole thing was dcne w i t h very
l i t t l e mmmicaticn as f a r as me, Bob and Mike. lbre of less, Bob wculd go
cut and do scanethirq and wculd fee3 back to us, but we redlly had very l i t t l e
involvement with what we into do w i t h M Bnmn. One thing Bob
irdmted w a s t h a t i f w e b e n t d o w n t o K i b b a r d m w e w c u l d n o t f i n d i r m c h , they
were just starting up, they were new, they had rmghly 10,000 sq. foot of
office space, a few staff people and the system of operation. He did feel they
w e r e capable of fulfilling cur needs.
One

1
-

the transformation of licensing fmpn FSC to Hilhxd-Bnmn and we

prcbably had 60% to 70% of the in house w l e to FSC, Alan Inss, Scott
Robertsan, Rich Bravenuan, Keith Waters, R x M Dellinger, Kazly Radcliffe, along
with Barry Schuttler and sapne of the other satelites. A t this point Tan 'I\uner
was free ard clear and he was looking for scsne direction. By the week of A p r i l
19th
Tcm was up v i s i t k g with Bob all week seeking that direction and he was
also visiting w i t h Hibbard Bnmn so it looked l i k e Tan wculd also b e a m
involved.
We began

I also negotiated the courtship of Tony Pascoti and got him involved.
Fran the perid of A p r i l 1st on, wfien we began transferring license, one of the
main

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