Gillian Yu: Intentional Deception/Dubious Advisor? The truth needs to be unveiled
If you’re looking for fiduciaries in San Francisco, you might come across the name “Gillian Yu Morgan Stanley”. She is a financial advisor who claims to help her clients develop comprehensive plans.
In contrast to her claims, her professional history is full of multi-million disputes and sharing sensitive information about her clients.
Gillian Yu isn’t even her full name. She has changed her name from Chi Ling Gillian Yu to Gillian Yu because of the various disputes and negative attention she had attracted originally.
Hence, before you trust her and her firm with your financial future, please read the following review of Gillian Yu Morgan Stanley:
Who is Gillian Yu Morgan Stanley?
Gillian Yu Morgan Stanley is a financial advisor based in San Francisco, California. Her office is located at 555 California Street 14th Fl, San Francisco, CA 94104, US and her contact number is 415-576-2167.
She claims to help her clients create multigenerational wealth through personalized plans and goals. Some of her offered services include lifestyle advisory, investment management, wealth transfer, cash management, early-stage trust, and several more.
Gillian claims to have over 20 years of professional experience but she fails to mention several key details of her career. Below are some of the highlights she is hiding from you and other prospective clients:
Shady Past of Gillian Yu aka Chi Ling Gillian Yu ($20,000,000+ Disputes)
The full name of Gillian Yu is Chi Ling (Gillian) Yu. She boasts of working for 15 years at Credit Suisse Securities but fails to share that she was fired from that place.
Gillian Yu was discharged because of allegations relating to communications with another representative discussing securities activity involving a foreign client beyond what’s permitted by the company policy.
After losing her job at Credit Suisse Securities, she found employment at Morgan Stanley where she has been working since 2015.
This isn’t the first instance where Gillian Yu Morgan Stanley put her clients in harm’s way. She has had three different disputes with her clients in 2008:
First Dispute:
Gillian’s first client dispute is dated 5-16-2008. Here, the customer alleges that in october 2007, they agreed to invest in bond funds but no instructions were given with respect to the remainder of the funds which were invested in ARS (Auction Rate Securities) without risk disclosure. They alleged that the securities were now illiquid.
The client had requested $4,000,000 in damages and settled the matter for $4,050,000. In response to this, Gillian Yu Morgan Stanely blames the volatile market of 2008 and says that the relationship manager was not a party to the agreement and so, wasn’t asked to contribute anything to the agreement.
Second Dispute:
Her second dispute is dated 5-30-2008. Here, the client alleges that in November and December 2007, they agreed to invest in “Commercial Paper”, giving instructions to meet two criteria, safety and liquidity. However, contrary to the instructions, their funds were invested in Auction Rate Securities which are now illiquid. The client said that they felt misled.
What is commercial paper?
Unsecured, Short term debt instrument issued by companies. The aim to issue a commercial paper is to finance the short-term liabilities. For example, Payroll, inventories etc.
Gillian’s firm had settled this matter for $11,950,000. She gave the response to this dispute she had given to the first dispute.
Third Dispute:
This dispute is dated 6-26-2008. Here, the client alleged that they were informed the Auction Rate Securities were “frozen” when their auctions failed. Furthermore, the client alleges that they didn’t give instructions to invest in such securities.
The firm had settled this case for $8,350,000.
Skilled financial advisors rarely have any disputes listed on their FINRA BrokerCheck listings while Gillian Yu of Morgan Stanely has a total of four (one being the discharge from her past employer).
Charging 12b-1 Fees
Her current policies don’t reflect any improvements from her past behavior. The biggest example is her provision of charging 12b-1 fees. This is a marketing fee which goes in the advisor’s pocket.
You might think that investments that charge this fee offer better returns than those which don’t charge this fee. However, that’s not the case.
In fact, the SEC had conducted a study and found that the returns of mutual funds that charge 12b-1 fees offer poorer returns because theri cost is significantly higher while the performance is the same.
Putting Clients at Excessive Risk
Another drawback of working with Gillian Yu Morgan Stanley is that she charges performance-based fees. When your advisor charges performance-based fees, it means they earn money only when they beat a specific benchmark.
Outperforming a benchmark requires them to use high-risk strategies which is something you should definitely.
Such risk can be very detrimental to your portfolio, particularly when you’re looking for long-term security. If you’re a client of Gillian Yu, you should review your investments and see if they aren’t following such dangerous strategies.
Charging performance-based fees is quite a common practice among shady financial advisors. For example, Renee Hanson Ameriprise also charges this fee and has put many of her clients at unnecessary risk.
Should You Trust Gillian Yu? The Answer is No
If a financial advisory has to change her name to get clients, you can guess how much you can trust her. Gillian Yu has a history full of customer conflicts. Keep in mind that clients rarely file claims and disputes against their financial advisors.
So, having three client disputes is a huge deal. Furthermore, Gillian lost her last job for sharing sensitive information about one of her clients with a colleague. This is not the conduct of a professional wealth advisor.
It would be better to find a different financial advisor who truly cares about his or her clients. At best, you can avoid Gillian Yu Morgan Stanley.
Disappointing behaviour of the staff.
Extremely unprofessional.
No use of complaining.