Fera Shivaee: $100K Bond Complaint Against Centaurus Advisor

Records filed with a US bankruptcy court show that at least 7 current and/or former clients of Centaurus Financial advisor Fera Shivaee (CRD# 2271590) are listed as creditors for investments in GWG Holdings L bonds and/or preferred stock. The records describe investments totaling at least $750,000. Records maintained by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority show that the Laguna Niguel, California advisor has also received multiple investor complaints.

Ms. Shivaee’s BrokerCheck report discloses two investor complaints. The most recent, filed in August 2023, alleges that as a representative of Centaurus Financial, she “recommended unsuitable, complex, high-risk, illiquid investment and breached her fiduciary duty” in connection with corporate bond products. The pending complaint, which she “vehemently” denied in a statement included with the disclosure, alleges damages of $100,000.

A second investor complaint, filed in 2013, alleged that as a representative of Centaurus Financial, she recommended unsuitable investments, breached her fiduciary duty, engaged in negligence, failed to conduct due diligence, negligently misrepresented material facts, breached her fiduciary duty, made material omissions and misrepresentations, committed securities fraud, and violated FINRA rules. The complaint resulted in an award to the customer of $674,421, which a statement included with the disclosure notes was subsequently reduced.

As SWFI reported in April 2022, GWG Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after disclosing in February 2022 “that it was unable to continue making payments on the L Bonds,” the life settlement-backed bonds it issued to investors in the preceding years. As the article notes, the funds “pooled money from bond investors to purchase life insurance policies on the secondary market; GWG Holdings then used payouts from the policies when people died to repay investors.” The company reportedly failed to make $13.6 million in payments related to L bonds — both principal payments and interest — and had more a principal amount of $1.3 billion outstanding as of September 30 and December 31, 2020. More information about GWG L bonds is available here.

According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Fera Shivaee holds 30 years of securities industry experience. Based in Laguna Niguel, California, she has been a broker and an investment advisor with Centaurus Financial since 1997. Her past registrations include SunAmerica Securities (Phoenix, Arizona; 1996-1997), Finance 500 (Irvine, California; 1995-1996), Centaurus Financial (Anaheim, California; 1993-1996), and Mariner Financial Services (Largo, Florida; 1993). Her credentials include the passage of eight securities industry qualifying exams: the Investment Company Products/Variable Contracts Principal Examination, or Series 26; the General Securities Principal Examination, or Series 24; the Investment Company Products/Variable Contracts Representative Examination, or Series 6; the Non-Member General Securities Examination, or Series 2; the General Securities Representative Examination, or Series 7; the Securities Industry Essentials Examination, or SIE; the Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination, or Series 63; and the Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination, or Series 65. She is licensed in Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. (Information current as of October 3, 2023.)

Carlson Law has represented at least nine investors in claims against their financial advisors for investments in GWG Holdings Inc. If you or a loved one have suffered investment losses, please call us at 888-976-6111 or complete our contact form for a free and confidential consultation.