Ziad Abdelnour

Ziad Abdelnour          (financier, businessman, neoconservative)
Born	1960-12-03 Beirut, Lebanon
Nationality	Lebanese, American
Alma mater	American University of Beirut, Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania
Religion	Roman Catholic
Criminal charge	Violation of Sections 17(a)(1) and (3) of the Securities Act, Violation of Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act
Out of court settlement	$25000 fine, 5 year ban from dealing in securities (now expired)
Founder of	United States Committee for a Free Lebanon
A neoconservative financier who was disciplined by the SEC.

Ziad K. Abdelnour is a Lebanon-born American financier who reached an out of court settlement with the SEC in 2013 that saw him fined $25,000 and banned from dealing in securities for 5 years.

Background

Ziad Abdelnour is the son of Lebanese industrialist and former MP Khalil Abdelnour (1992-2000) and the nephew of former Lebanese financier and MP Salem Abdelnour (1960-1964 and 1972-1992) In 1984 he graduated from the Wharton School of Finance.

Career

In 1995, Ziad Abdelnour was a partner with Continuum Capital, a privately held investment and merchant banking firm in New York City. He worked^[When?] as an investment banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert where he was a high yield bond trader under Michael Milken.

Abdelnour has spoken on TV and has written on "wealth creation", physical commodities trading and Middle East geo-political analysis at industry conferences in USA.

Connections

Ziad Abdelnour had close ties to the US Neoconservative network, but was charged by the SEC, indicating that he fell out of favour. He agreed to a cease and desist order which banned him from the securities industry for 5 years. Reporting on this settlement, Dealbreaker magazine remarked that Abdelnour used to be a prominent "junk bond salesman during Michael Milken’s glory days... so he’s not bad all the time, whatever he’s up to these days." In 2016, Richtopia ranked him as one of "The 500 Most Influential CEOs".

Blackhawk Partners

In 2006, after a 22-year career on Wall Street he founded Blackhawk Partners, which appeared "geared towards high net worth individuals or entities, requiring a minimum investment ranging from $10 million to $100 million, and running in duration from one day to forty weeks." For an eighteen month period beginning in September 2009 the firm offered in a web posting investments in prime bank instruments that were claimed to yield returns of as much as 600% without risk. Such remarkable offers (up to 100% in one day!) did not attract any investors but did attract the attention of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which began an investigation and subsequent lawsuit.

SEC case settlement

In 2011, Abdelnour was targeted by the SEC for advertising/solicitation after he published an informational blog post on his Blackhawk Partners company website talking about the mechanisms of private placement issues and how they work. On 7 May 2013, after two and a half years battle with no proven wrong-doing, the SEC and Abdelnour reached an out of court settlement, amounting to a $25,000 fine and 5 year ban from the securities industry.

In the settlement, the SEC determined that he "knew or recklessly disregarded that the representations he made about the private placement programs on Blackhawk's website and in documents he provided to potential investors were false." In a private statement, Abdelnour emphatically stated that he never put anyone of his clients or partners at risk and has nothing to hide. He stated that no money was moved, no trade was done, and no one made or lost money, and that the blog was simply for educational purposes.

Opinion columnist, Matt Levine writing in Dealbreaker magazine remarked that "a $25,000 fine is I guess a little harsh for a scam that didn’t actually hurt anyone, but at the same time it’s a little mild for an intentionally scammy effort to steal millions of dollars, failed or not."

Activities

Ziad Abdelnour is chairman and a founding member of the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, an activist organization lobbying the United States government to oppose Syria's influence in Lebanon, supporting the Syria Accountability Act. He supported the neoconservative Middle East Forum, co-authoring in 2000 a Forum study whose signatories included later George W. Bush administration officials Paula Dobriansky and Douglas Feith.

"In 2000, he was an author of a policy paper advocating the removal of the Syrians from Lebanon that was endorsed by a number of people with close ties to Bush advisers, including Richard N. Perle, a Reagan administration assistant secretary of defense; Douglas J. Feith, one of the architects of the plan to invade Iraq; and David Wurmser, adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney on the Middle East."

Opinions

In an interview with Trish Schuh in 2005, Abdelnour said:

“Iran? We will not let Iran become a nuclear power. We'll find a way, we'll find an excuse- to get rid of Iran. And I don't care what the excuse is. There is no room for rogue states in the world. Whether we lie about it, or invent something, or we don't... I don't care. The end justifies the means. What's right? Might is right, might is right. That's it. Might is right...”
Ziad Abdelnour (November 18, 2005) 

Later on in the interview he states

“Iran's going to be finished and every single Arab regime that's like this will be finished. Because there is no room for us capitalists and multinationalists in the world to operate with regimes like this. Its all about money. And power. And wealth... and democracy has to be spread around the world. Those who want to espouse globalization are going to make a lot of money, be happy, their families will be happy. And those who aren't going to play this game are going to be crushed, whether they like it or not! This is how we rule. And this is how it's going to be as long as you have people who think like me.”
Ziad Abdelnour (November 18, 2005) 

On Israel's Invasion of Lebanon

“The end justifies the means. I don't care about how it's done. The important thing is that it is done. I don't rule out force. I'm not against force. If it's an option, it will be an option... I have — we have — absolutely no problem with heavy US involvement in Lebanon. On an economic level, military level, political level, security level... whatever it is. Israel is the 51^st state of the United States. Let Lebanon be the 52^nd state. And if the Arabs don't like it, tough luck.”
Ziad Abdelnour (November 18, 2005) 

Hezbollah

“The Lebanese cannot have their cake and eat it, too...Let’s get rid of this cancer [Hezbollah]... Let’s finish the job.”
Ziad Abdelnour (1 August 2006) 

War

In 2013, he entitled an article Why a Middle East War is Inevitable which opined that "While it looks like President Obama wants to strip Iran of its nuclear ambitions through negotiations he has convinced the Israelis that if, by the summer of 2014, he fails to strip Iran of its nuclear program, he will back a large-scale military attack on the Iranian infrastructure using direct US power."

Publications

Abdelnour has contributed a number of articles to the Middle East Forum web site. With Daniel Pipes he was co-Publisher of Middle East Intelligence Bulletin including the report Ending Syria's occupation of Lebanon: The US Role.

In 2011 he wrote Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics, arguing that governments should focus on wealth creation, not job creation.

See Also

• Document:US Planned Syrian Civilian Catastrophe Since 2007 - See Timeline Section 2005
• 30 LinkedIn Influencers Who Built A Powerhouse Personal Brand

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