Wednesday, February 03, 2010

BJ Group - Genworth Financial Class Action

It appears Bob Brinker wisely ended his relationship with Genworth Financial shortly before this class action was filed.

GENWORTH FINANCIAL WEALTH MANAGEMENT (BJ GROUP SERVICES)

Class Period: Dec 22, 2003 to Dec 22, 2009

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Mar 8, 2010

Summary of Case:

A securities class action has been filed against Genworth Financial Wealth Management (BJ Group Services Portfolios) ("Genworth" or the "Company") on behalf of all securities purchasers from December 22, 2003 through December 22, 2009, inclusive ("Class Period"), in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

The claims arise from the fraudulent scheme perpetrated by Defendants through Genworth's marketing, solicitation, sale and management of the Portfolio.

The complaint alleges that the scheme was facilitated by Defendants, who knowingly, recklessly and/or with intent to deceive disseminated to prospective and current investors materially misleading representations regarding the Portfolio and its "exclusive" management agreement with Robert "Bob" Brinker.

The complaint alleges that According to all of its sales, marketing and disclosure materials disseminated to prospective and current investors in Genworth's Private Client Group, "The BJ Group Service offers clients tactical asset allocation by implementing recommendations from Robert ("Bob") J. Brinker, author of Marketimer newsletter." Defendants represented that "Bob recommends asset allocations and fund selection for GF AM's management of accounts for the BJ Group Advisory Services." The materials explicitly state: "This portfolio is based on the Bob Brinker model, offered through our exclusive partnership with him" and that "[o]ur experienced professionals work to implement Bob's investment strategy utilizing his proprietary tactical asset allocation model."

The complaint further alleges that Contrary to Defendants' representations that the Portfolio was being managed based upon the Brinker recommendations, the percentage of non-Brinker recommended Funds being purchased for the Portfolio routinely exceeded 50%. By not implementing Brinker's tactical asset allocation and fund selection, Genworth was able to generate for itself extra revenues by selecting alternate mutual funds that paid higher administrative and service fees. Defendants purchased these funds, instead of purchasing funds recommended by Brinker, notwithstanding that these funds routinely underperformed Funds recommended by Brinker.

If you purchased this company's shares during the Class Period and suffered a loss, please contact Scott + Scott LLP here




The last issue we could find of Marketimer that advertised for Genworth Financial was June 2009.


Since this case came up, we noticed Bob Brinker no longer advertises money management on his website. Here is a picture of his web site from the past


Click images to see original size.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the update on that. We considered using BJ Group ourselves but never did. We moved from enthusiastic followers/subscribers of Bob's to a more casual connection.

    Shark attacks can be found just about anywhere.

    Best wishes

    ReplyDelete

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