Head of Enviso Capital Ryan Bowers Fined and Suspended By FINRA For Withholding Information From Investors In San Diego.

Ryan Neel Bowers of Enviso Capital has been fined $25,000 and suspended from the brokerage industry for five months for failure to make important disclosures to investors.

If your investment portfolio dropped 46%, you would want to know, right? Well, apparently Mr. Bowers failed to provide this information to investors in one of his private funds. At least some of the account statements they received failed to show this stunning drop.

While Mr. Bowers is suspended from the brokerage industry, he continues to provide investment advisory services to the public, which is an area of the securities market outside FINRA’s jurisdiction.

Mr. Bowers is head of the investment advisory firm Enviso Capital, which manages approximately $200 million and is based in San Diego. Enviso, in turn, serves as investment advisor to the following three funds:

• GPTH Note, a $12.6 million fund with approximately 72 investors. According to Enviso, GPTH Note is a fund which holds one primary asset, a promissory note issued to provide funding for a Georgia Proton Treatment Center.
• Heritage Dividend Fund, a $13.3 million fund with approximately 82 investors. According to Enviso, it is designed to generate high current income while supposedly having a relatively low level of risk. This fund is a closed-end fund which is no longer accepting new capital.
• Heritage Opportunity Fund, a $10.6 million fund with approximately 68 investors. According to Enviso, it was formed to manage investments in smaller private companies and is no longer accepting new capital.

If GPTH Note is any indication, these funds could be in for a bumpy road. According to a July 27, 2015 article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the proton therapy center is behind schedule and short on cash. According to the article, “A potentially challenging financing period for the Midtown proton therapy center lies ahead,” and the company needs to “secure $120 million to $150 million in senior debt.” It is unclear whether this debt would be more senior than the debt held by GPTH Note, or whether this project will be completed successfully at all.

These funds should not be a large part of most investors’ portfolios.

Hopefully, Enviso will do a better job of keeping investors in its funds informed about losses in the future.

Investment advisors like Enviso and Ryan Bowers owe their clients fiduciary duties. They are legally obligated to put their clients’ interests first, and to use their expertise to properly diversify their clients’ holdings. Failure to diversify can lead to excessive risk in a portfolio and pointless losses.

Part of meeting their fiduciary obligations happens when a firm like Enviso sets up compliance and supervisory procedures to ensure that investors are protected. That could be an issue with Mr. Bowers. In 2007, he was fired from the brokerage firm Securities America for selling private placements outside of the firm’s supervisory system. This practice, called “selling away,” puts investors at risk because there is no oversight of these securities transactions. Hopefully, Mr. Bowers is working within a robust supervisory system at Enviso.

If you have questions about investment losses, the securities litigation attorneys at Investor Defense Law LLP may be able to help, and offer free initial consultations.

Investor Defense Law LLP is a law firm dedicated to helping investors in California, Georgia and Washington State recover investment losses. We understand investment fraud and know how to sue investment advisors, brokerage firms, and financial advisors. To learn more, contact an investment fraud attorney at 800.487.4660.