Ten former employees of Stanford Financial Group, the Charlotte wealth management company whose founder was indicted on charges of securities fraud, have created an advisory company based in Charlotte.
Taggart "Tagg" Romney, the oldest son of former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney, will invest in the new firm, Solamere Advisors, it said Wednesday.
The 10 founders worked for Stanford for four to 13 months before the company closed in February, said Leila Evans, a partner in the new company. Stanford founder R. Allen Stanford has been in custody since June 18 after an indictment by a U.S. grand jury in Houston on charges that he led a $7 billion securities fraud.
"We learned wonderful lessons from an incredibly unfortunate situation," said Evans, who worked for Stanford for four months after spending 21 years with Wachovia Corp.'s wealth management unit. "We learned how to build our firm so those situations can't happen again."
Solamere, which also employs one person who did not work at Stanford, will use Pershing LLC, a subsidiary of Bank of New York Mellon Corp., and Capital Guardian LLC as its broker-dealers.
