Investment Banking Without a License
Also sports swaps, spoofing training, Musk’s 13D fine and Bruno’s Tavern.
Investment banking is, in the US, a regulated profession. If you are doing certain investment banking activities — like “advising on and/or facilitating … debt and equity offerings, mergers and acquisitions, tender offers, financial restructurings, asset sales, divestitures or other corporate reorganizations and business combination transactions,” you have to pass a licensing exam and register with Finra, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
This sometimes trips people up, because investment banking is not as clearly defined as some other professions. If I am buddies with a chief executive officer, and I tell her “hey I’ve got another buddy who runs a startup, you should buy them,” and she does and pays me a finder’s fee, did I commit unlicensed investment banking? Maybe? If I am some random celebrity or politician and I get hired by an investment bank to glad-hand clients, can I glad-hand the clients before passing my licensing exams? Not a great idea, but I bet it has happened.