FINRA Expels MICG Investment Management for Fraud Involving Proprietary Hedge Fund

FINRA expelled MICG Investment Management, LLC (MICG) and barred Jeffrey A. Martinovich, the firm's CEO and majority owner, for securities fraud, misusing investors' funds and causing false account statements to be issued to investors in connection with their management of a proprietary hedge fund named MICG Venture Strategies, LLC (Venture Strategies). MICG and Martinovich organized, controlled and managed the hedge fund. 

FINRA found that MICG and Martinovich improperly assigned excessive asset values to two non-public securities owned by Venture Strategies, and used the excessive asset values as the basis for paying unjustified management and incentive performance fees. Martinovich also fraudulently induced an elderly, non-accredited MICG customer to invest $75,000 in Venture Strategies.

In concluding this settlement, MICG and Martinovich neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings.