Fund.com

Fund.com Inc. is a US-based financial services information publishing company and fund platform that focuses on the fund management industry. Its aims were to provide a destination website for investments, including mutual funds, hedge funds, money market funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), closed-end funds, index funds, commodity funds and other types of pooled investment vehicles.

Fund.com Inc.
OTC Pink No Information: FNDM
Founded2007 (2007)
Headquarters
New York City
,
US
Key people
Jason Galanis[1]

The company saw a significant decline in its share price after a soured business deal in late 2009 after which it has only traded in the “pink sheets”. Some of its senior executives were connected to Westmoore Capital from which Fund.com raised $1.5 million in 2008. Westmoore Capital was closed down by the SEC for running a $53 million Ponzi scheme.[1]

History

The company was formed through a reverse takeover in January 2008 of Eastern Services Group, a state and local tax advisor for Nevada casinos. After the merger the name was changed to Fund.com.[2][1]

Domain name purchase

In March 2008, Clek Media announced that it had brokered the sale of the domain name “Fund.com” for nearly $10 million in an all-cash transaction, to the company Fund.com Inc. Although never confirmed by the company itself, the purchase price would have been the highest recorded price paid for a web site domain up to that point, followed by Porn.com ($9.5 million) Business.com ($7.5 million) and Diamond.com ($7.5 million).[3] However, some industry insiders have questioned the validity of the amount reported.[4]

AdvisorShares acquisition

The company purchased a 60% stake in AdvisorShares for an initial payment of $275,000, on October 31, 2008.[5]

Vensure Employer Services attempted acquisition

On November 4, 2009, Fund.com announced its purchase of an equity interest in Mesa, Arizona-based Vensure Employer Services, Inc., a professional employer organization that provides benefits and payroll administration, health and workers' compensation insurance programs, employee training and development services, and retirement benefits plans, such as 401(k) plans, for small and medium businesses. The equity was represented by $21.9 million of participating preferred stock of Vensure.

Vensure was unable to provide Fund.com with two years of audited financial statements, and Fund.com decided to refocus after expanding a subsidiary and acquiring another company. The purchase transaction was subsequently reversed.[6]

Whyte Lyon Socratic acquisition

In November 2009, the company also announced that it had purchased 100% of the capital stock of Whyte Lyon Socratic, Inc., a developer of online education programs for investors, debtors and professionals. As part of that transaction, Whyte Lyon's president Joseph J. Bianco was named chairman of the board of Fund.com.[7]

Whyte Lyon Socratic specialized in long-distance learning and assisting online students in developing the necessary skills to understand financial transactions and financial markets; develop money management skills to help them manage their income and wealth; and reach particular goals, including homeownership, debt reconciliation, and improved credit scores.

Decline

In September 2011, an unusually large 1-for-120 reverse split of Fund.com shares failed to stop the share price slide. Fund.com lost 99% of its value that year giving a market value of around $8.4 million.[1]

Recovery

In late 2016, Thomas Braziel was assigned as a receiver to Fund.com and investigated how he could monetize the remaining assets of the company on behalf of shareholders.[8] Among other things, Braziel is trying to recover the fund.com URL that the previous management sold in an allegedly fraudulent transaction involving John Galanis. In addition, fund.com and AdvisorShares settled a lawsuit over an ownership dispute. In July 2018, Braziel successfully recovered the fund.com domain name for the receivership and is pursuing further action against previous insiders and recovery of other assets.[9]

In 2019, Braziel determined that Fund.com had never paid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.[10][11] Braziel recreated, at best as possible, the financial books and records for the company between 2007 and 2017, prepared 12 years of overdue income tax returns with assistance from an outside accounting firm, and updated the outstanding share count records with assistance from a transfer agent.[10][11]

Since recovery of the Fund.com domain, Braziel and his team have begun to outfit the website as an investment media platform and as a sourcing site for claims of distressed creditors.

See also

References
  1. "The Past May Be A Prologue For Fund.com And Weston Capital". Business Insider Australia. April 20, 2011.
  2. "Fund.com Inc. (FNDM) -Other OTC". Yahoo Finance. June 6, 2014.
  3. 'Clek Media Inc. Brokers World-Record $10 Million Domain Sale'
  4. "Fund.com Sells for a Record $10 Million". DomainNameNews. December 3, 2008.
  5. "AdvisorShares Investments, LLC Purchase and Contribution Agreement".
  6. "Termination of a Material Definitive Agreement, Notice of Delisting or Failure to S". Yahoo News. August 24, 2010. Archived from the original on March 13, 2016.
  7. 'Fund.com Acquires an Equity Interest in Vensure Employer Services and Whyte Lyon Socratic, Names Joseph J. Bianco as Chairman of the Board'
  8. "Thomas Braziel, as Receiver of Fund.com Inc., Announces Delaware Chancery Court Fixes Deadline for Creditors of Fund.com Inc. to File Claims in the Company's Receivership Proceeding" (press release). Receiver of Fund.com Inc. BusinessWire. February 7, 2017.
  9. "Delaware Receivership - Court Documents". Receiver of Fund.com Inc.. Retrieved July 25, 2018.
  10. Klein, Julia B. (October 31, 2019). "Letter to Delaware Court of Chancery". Klein LLC. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
  11. Klein, Julia B. (January 6, 2020). "Letter to Delaware Court of Chancery". Klein LLC. Retrieved January 27, 2020.
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