LPL Financial and its top broker in Louisiana have cut ties after receiving a Wells notice informing them of a pending investigation of the broker by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
Garrett Ahrens and his firm, Ahrens Investment Partners, separated from LPL in August. Ahrens had been with LPL since 1998 and he was ranked as one of LPL’s top brokers, with a reported $775 million in assets in customer accounts.
Ahrens was given notice of the pending FINRA investigation regarding the potential misuse of consolidated reports, which provide clients with an overall outlook of their investment assets, including accounts held outside of the firm. FINRA is investigating whether these reports contained incorrect information by “presenting customers with consolidated reports that contained statements that were false, exaggerated, unwarranted or misleading,” according to Ahrens’s FINRA BrokerCheck disclosure.
LPL Financial was fined $11.7 million in May for alleged supervisory failures pertaining to the creation and use of type of consolidated reports at issue here. In the past, Ahrens has had eight complaints filed against him according to his FINRA BrokerCheck record.
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If you invested with Garrett Ahrens or Ahrens Investment Partners, or received a consolidated report from him, you may have certain legal rights that require your immediate attention. The attorneys at Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. have helped recover more than $100 million from some of the largest banks and brokerage firms in the world. Contact us to schedule an appointment or consultation today.
