Policies & Disclosures: Conflicts of Interest

Our Relationship With Mutual Fund Companies, Insurance Companies and Other Product Sponsors

As representatives of an independent broker/dealer, Advanced Equities financial advisors have the ability to build investment portfolios based on the specific needs and goals of each individual client. Advanced Equities offers a wide variety of approved products and programs including stocks, bonds, options, mutual funds, annuities, life insurance, alternative investments, college savings plans, and asset management programs. Because there are hundreds of investment choices within this universe of approved products, Advanced Equities marketing resources are focused on a select group of companies (product sponsors listed below) that offer a broad spectrum of products and meet Advanced Equities due diligence criteria. The product sponsors have greater access to our advisors to market, train and educate them on their products and industry related topics with the intent to better serve their mutual clients.

It is important to know that although the product sponsors pay compensation to Advanced Equities and/or its affiliates, clients do not pay more to purchase these products through Advanced Equities than they would normally pay to purchase them through another broker/dealer. The payment of this additional compensation to Advanced Equities by these product sponsors may pose a financial incentive for us to promote certain products over other products, although we believe that these arrangements do not compromise the advice your advisor provides to you.

Advanced Equities is providing the following information to help you better understand the potential conflicts of interests regarding compensation that Advanced Equities receives from certain product sponsors whose investments we offer to you.

The additional amounts that these product sponsors pay Advanced Equities vary from one sponsor to another and from one product to another. These payments can be calculated the following ways:

  1. As a fixed annual or one-time amount,
  2. As a percentage of sales ranging from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent (which would be from $5 to $150 on a $10,000 investment),
  3. As a percentage of our customers' asset invested in the products ranging to a maximum of .10 percent (which would be $10 on a $10,000 investment),
  4. A reimbursement of some or all of the brokerage ticket charges normally paid by your advisor; or,
  5. As a combination of these. The product sponsors who make these payments and the formulas by which they compensate Advanced Equities are subject to change going forward.

All of these above-referenced payments are in addition to the sales charges disclosed in the offering materials of the investments offered by the product sponsors, and those offering materials have additional information about these payments.

Companies that are not product sponsors may at times send Advanced Equities payments in recognition of our sales and marketing efforts, and may have additional opportunities to provide marketing services to our advisors. In addition, both product sponsors and other companies may pay marketing allowances to Advanced Equities in connection with the sale of certain products and for training and educational meetings for our advisors. Both product sponsors and other companies may also reimburse up to 100 percent of the cost of due diligence, training and education/joint marketing meetings for our advisors, as permitted by industry rules. Sales of any products by Advanced Equities advisors may qualify them for additional cash and non-cash compensation that may include support for their business activities, attendance at seminars, conferences and entertainment. Additionally, some investments, whether they are issued by a product sponsor or not, may pay higher rates of compensation than others (for example, commissions on equities are usually greater than those on bonds, and private placement offerings generally carry higher commissions than investments in publicly traded securities).

Advanced Equities product sponsors for 2007 are listed below in alphabetical order:

  • Advanced Equities, Inc.
  • AEI Real Estate Fund, LLC
  • Allianz Life Insurance
  • American Skandia/Prudential
  • Argus Realty Investors
  • AssetMark
  • AXA Equitable
  • Baceline Investments, LLC
  • Beacon Rock
  • CNL Real Estate
  • Cole Real Estate
  • DeSanto Realty Group
  • Dividend Capital
  • Dunham and Associates
  • Federated Funds
  • Fidelity Mutual Funds
  • First Trust Portfolios
  • Fixed Income Securities
  • Genworth (GE Life)
  • Hartford-Planco
  • Hines Real Estate
  • ICON Capital Corporation
  • Inland Securities Corporation
  • IMH Secured Loan Fund, LLC
  • ING North American Ins. Corp.
  • Jackson National
  • Nationwide
  • Pacific Life Insurance Co.
  • Passco Companies, LLC
  • PDC Securities
  • Phoenix Life Insurance Company
  • Putnam
  • RBC Financial Group
  • Reich & Tang Funds
  • Riversource Annuities
  • Scudder Investments
  • Superfund/Quadriga
  • Symmetra Financial
  • Transamerica
  • Vanguard*
  • Waveland Securities
  • Wells Investment Securities, Inc. Dividend Capital
*Flat Fee Only

 

Please contact your advisor for an offering document, which contains more complete information on the investment's objectives, charges, fees, risks, and expenses. Please read and consider the information in the offering document carefully before investing.

For more information call: 800-474-0900

311 S Wacker Drive, Suite 1650 • Chicago, IL 60606

© 2008 Advanced Equities, Inc. member FINRA/SIPC