FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 30, 2019

Contact:

Kathleen R. McMorrow

The Communications Optic, LLC.

Phone: 973.665.8167

Email: [email protected]

Barclay Leib to Lead Enhanced Due Diligence Investigations

(Wanaque, NJ) In celebrating its 20th anniversary, Hetherington Group (Hg) is proud to announce a platinum investigations package catered to the gathering of data and intelligence on companies, their principles, shareholders, employees, structure, and products. Led by Senior Advisor Barclay Leib, Hg’s Financial Sector Enhanced Services Suite will offer enhanced due diligence, business intelligence, investment asset investigations, enhanced background checks, and enhanced interviews and profiles.

With over 34 years of experience trading in the global capital markets, Leib specializes in forensic hedge fund due diligence research, peer group analysis, OCIO alternative asset portfolio building services, expert witness consulting to law firms, and technical advisory work on individual investment portfolios. A current consultant to several large family office clients and a former full-time market analyst and financial writer for the Princeton Economic Institute, Mr. Leib holds his Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) credentials, as well as a FINRA Series 65 license under Sand Spring Advisors LLC.

“In today’s global marketplace, investors are faced with multi-national compliance regulations that impact even the smallest of decisions,” noted Hg’s founder and president Cynthia Hetherington. “Hg values the needs of our clients by offering comprehensive products that ensure they have precise, real-time data to make precise, real-time financial decisions. We are excited to offer this platinum package to the investment world and thrilled to have Barclay lead our team.”

Hg’s Financial Sector Enhanced Services Suite uncovers information on domestic and foreign businesses, start-up ventures, corporations, and principals and products, including the parties they work with, the vendors and suppliers they associate with, and the entities that manage their assets. Financial, legal, and reputational information discovered during enhanced due diligence investigations is geared toward helping clients understand people and organizations of interest, while complying with legal and regulatory requirements.

“Hetherington Group has all of the electronic investigative tools to find tons of valuable information,” stated Mr. Leib. “Enhanced due diligence then takes this information and goes one step further—putting a more qualitative opinion on the information’s potential importance from a total mosaic perspective. This typically involves much more onsite, in-person, and third-party research as well as a focused forensic eye on the information being presented.”

Hg’s Financial Sector Enhanced Services Suite is geared toward questioning small, loose ends that almost always pop up when someone is trying to be fraudulent. Any one due diligence item by itself may seem benign, but, additively taken together, other conclusions become appropriate.

“Enhanced due diligence is all about getting to a fair and correct answer,” Mr. Leib explained. “I am most excited to be a resource towards this end with Hetherington Group and our clients. For example, a cursory FINRA Brokercheck might show a clean regulatory history for an investment manager, but the quality of the firms that the individual has worked for might still be quite suspect when examined more closely. An investment manager might be able to produce a clean annual audit for a fund product, but careful forensic examination of the larger holdings disclosed within that audit could suggest the manipulation of security prices away from their true fundamental value. Enhanced due diligence is a path to avoid unforeseen potholes that simple return chasing can quite often deliver, and we are excited to put our skills to work.”

About Barclay Leib, CFE, CAIA

Barclay Leib, CFE, CAIA is principal and founder of Sand Spring Advisors LLC. Since founding Spring Advisors LLC in 1999, he has served as an outsourced alternative asset advisor to several family office and multi-family office groups, while also providing expert analysis of complex financial situations to the legal community.

A 1981 Wilson Scholar graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs, Mr. Leib conducted research into the regulatory aspects of the 1980 Hunt Silver Crisis, which was subsequently used as Expert Analysis by U.S. Congressional and Senate Sub-Committees. Mr. Leib previously served as the Head of Alternative Research at Fortigent LLC (2013-2014), as Head Trader & Risk Manager for Glenrock Asset Management LLC (2007-2012), and ran fund of funds portfolios for family office and endowment and foundation clients (1999-2007).

Mr. Leib’s early career spanned senior derivatives trading positions at firms including JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, which has enhanced the depth of his due diligence expertise today. He has contributed to several books, including Planning for the Affluent (2002) and Technical Analysis and Behavioral Finance in Fund Management (2009), and is the co-author of the CFA Level III chapter text on hedge funds to be released in 2019. Mr. Leib has also contributed investigative articles to financial publications including Institutional Investor, Plan Sponsor, Financial Executive, Treasury & Risk Management, and Derivatives Strategy.

About the Hetherington Group

With two decades of expertise, the Hetherington Group is a leader in investigative due diligence, corporate intelligence, and cyber investigations. Headquartered in Wanaque, New Jersey, Hg’s investigators and analysts track down and expose vital data on national and international investigations; train thousands of investigators in the public and private sectors annually; and share their expertise in this increasingly data-intensive, cyber focused-world through the publication of an Industry Newsletter and recognized investigative reference books. Hg’s Certified Fraud Examiners have a history of working in conjunction with and training members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and state and international securities commissions. Hg is a certified National Women Business Owned Corporation, a certified Women’s Business Enterprise, a NJ Women Business Owned Corporation, and NY-NJ Port Authority Women-owned Business Enterprise.

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