Silver Law Group has filed a claim against Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (CRD# 7059) broker Charlie Yeung (CRD# 2785343) for unsuitably recommending and overconcentrating our client in Alpha Natural Resources.
Our client doesn’t speak English and felt comfortable with Yeung because he could speak her native language. Yeung proceeded to invest heavily in Alpha Natural Resources, an oil and gas company that has declined precipitously over the last three years and declared bankruptcy in 2015.
Our client is older, retired, and had a conservative risk profile, yet Yeung proceeded to overconcentrate our client’s money in the risky oil, gas and energy sector. Consequentially, our client lost a majority of the investment and the value of her account.
Citigroup and Yeung’s investment of our client’s money in Alpha Natural Resources is not a coincidence. Citigroup has maintained a financial relationship with Alpha Natural Resources for much of the oil and gas company’s life.
Citigroup served as joint lead underwriter, joint book manager and co-syndication agent for Alpha’s initial public offering in 2005. In January 2011, Citigroup advised and partially contributed $3.3 billion in financing to Alpha on its acquisition of Massey Energy Co., another oil and gas company Yeung invested our client’s money in, for $7.1 billion. In May 2013, Citigroup served as an underwriter for Alpha in a convertible senior notes offering. As recently as September of 2015, Citigroup was leading the charge to provide Alpha with a $692 debtor in possession loan in Alpha’s bankruptcy.
Oil and gas seemed like an untouchable investment at one point, but that mask only hid its risky nature. Unfortunately, many brokers and broker-dealers got caught up in oil and gas excitement and unsuitably recommended all sorts of oil- and gas-related investments, such as master limited partnerships (MLPs), stocks, and private placements, to its customers. Often times, they also overconcentrated their customers’ portfolios, including our client’s.
If you have invested with Charlie Yeung and Citigroup and have lost money doing so, you may be able to recover some or all of your losses. Our lawyers are experienced in recovering investor losses due to broker and brokerage firm misconduct through FINRA arbitration.
Silver Law Group represents the interests of investors who have been the victims of investment fraud. If you have questions about your legal rights, please contact Scott Silver of the Silver Law Group for a free consultation at ssilver@silverlaw.com or toll free at (800) 975-4345.