Stanford Financial Group

The Stanford Financial Group was a privately held international group of financial services companies controlled by Allen Stanford, until it was seized by American authorities in early 2009. Headquartered at 5050 Westheimer in Uptown Houston, Texas, it had 50 offices in several countries, mainly in the Americas, included the Stanford International Bank, and was said to have managed US$8.5 billion of assets for more than 30,000 clients in 136 countries on six continents. On February 17, 2009, U.S. Federal agents placed the company into receivership due to charges of fraud. Ten days later, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission amended its complaint to accuse Stanford of turning the company into a "massive Ponzi scheme".

Allen Stanford traced his company to the insurance company founded in 1932 in Mexia, Texas, by his grandfather, Lodis B. Stanford. However, there was no direct connection between the insurance company and Allen Stanford's banking business, which he started on the British Overseas Territory of Montserrat in the West Indies in the 1980s. Allen Stanford's move into banking utilised funds he had made in real estate in Houston in the early 1980s.

In 2008, Stanford Financial Group announced it would open a new global management complex in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, to include the base for the corporate support functions such as business technology, compliance, finance, human resources, investment strategy and legal, as well as the chairman's office. Completion was planned for July 2009 but did not occur due to the company's dissolution.

The company was bound by a web of personal and family ties. Stanford's chief financial officer and second-in-command, James M. Davis, was his roommate at Baylor University. The chief investment officer, Laura Pendergest-Holt, grew up attending a church in Baldwyn, Mississippi, where Davis was a Sunday school teacher. Many top officials were related to each other. This led former employees to claim the company was fraught with nepotism; former executive Charles Satterfield told Bloomberg News that whenever someone asked questions, a common response was "I'm not going to question my brother-in-law."

Stanford Financial Group comprised several affiliated companies:

In 2007, Stanford Financial Group assumed title sponsorship of the Stanford St. Jude Championship, a top PGA Tour event to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital of Memphis, Tennessee. On March 20, 2009, after the Group's fraud was revealed, the PGA announced that they would be dropping their affiliation with the company and that for 2009 the event would be called the St. Jude's Classic.

Stanford Financial Group was the lead financier for the 2007 film The Ultimate Gift,. According to the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, the story of The Ultimate Gift promoted philanthropy in not-for-profit health care institutions.

The group established a significant presence in golf, polo, tennis, cricket and sailing, sports which were popular among Stanford's wealthy clients. Stanford Financial Group was the title sponsor for such sporting events as the Stanford U.S. Open Polo Championship, the Stanford USPA Silver Cup, the Stanford Antigua Sailing Week, the PGA Tour Stanford St. Jude Championship, and the Stanford International Pro-Am. Stanford also sponsored professional golfers Vijay Singh, Camilo Villegas and David Toms as well as Morgan Pressel on the LPGA Tour. In tennis, the company was a sponsor of the Sony Ericsson Open. Stanford also sponsored the Champions Series Tennis Tournaments featuring Jim Courier, John McEnroe and Pete Sampras.