Tyrrell, who accepted Finra’s bar without admitting or denying its findings, was an officer of holding companies for Verlander’s outside investments and operated a company that provided “personal services” to the client, according to the consent letter. He also co-founded a company in which the client invested, it said.
The broker has served as trust protector and successor trustee for Verlander’s family trust, according to his BrokerCheck record.
Tyrrell was also a board member of Wings for Warriors, a charity Verlander founded. Tyrrell reported his position under the “other business activities” section of his BrokerCheck report.
Advisors who don’t report their outside business activities are increasingly becoming an issue for B-Ds and investors, especially when they solicit and invest client money in their “outside” ventures and businesses. Finra fined and suspended two former Merrill Lynch brokers for failing to report their bar and whiskey distillery businesses.
Brokers’ undisclosed business activities and private securities transactions conducted “away” from a firm and without their knowledge “may expose both firms and customers to potential risks,” according to a Finra report on broker violations released last week.
Outside business activities and private securities transactions can “potentially involve misconduct or create conflicts of interest that may expose both firms and customers to potential risks,” Finra said in the report on issues examiners have uncovered at B-Ds.
Tyrrell was terminated by UBS in August 2016 because he failed to disclose “outside activities and investments, failed to disclose a conflict of interest regarding his wife’s business that serviced a client of the firm and engaged in selling away, all in violation of firm policy,” according to a report on Tyrrell from the SEC’s IARD report.
Despite the pending Finra investigation, he went on to work at Cary Street Partners until September 29, when he “voluntarily resigned.”
The only other blemishes on Tyyrell’s record date back to 2001, when he was a broker with First Union Securities Inc. and two customer complaints regarding unauthorized trades and unsuitability were denied by the firm for lack of evidence. First Union Securities became Wachovia Securities after First Union Corp. acquired Wachovia Corp. in 2001 in what was billed as a merger of equals. The combined company kept the Wachovia name.