Ted Stearns

Current

Chief Operating Officer at Wealth Legacy Group, Inc.
Chairman of the Board- US Prov.Patent Holder AdvanceCard at iMerchant Advance
Founder at Aegean Capital Partners

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Past

Founder at TradeLine Solutions
Commodity Trader at ADM Investor Services
Financial Advisor at Presidential Brokerage / Clearing Bear Stearns / Merrill Lynch

Intern at Merrill Lynch
Internship at A.G. Edwards

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2 more...

Education

Army and Navy Academy

Recommended

3 people have recommended Ted

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Financial Services

Ted Stearns’s Summary

HE’S YOUNG, HARD-HITTING, and has an impressive background for a 32-year old. Ted Stearns is a serial entrepreneur and Chairman of San Diego based iMerchantAdvance and CEO of Aegean Capital Partners where is focus is to help small business owners access the capital necessary for their success.

At his young age, Stearns is not a newcomer to the world of finance. His experience began with Merrill Lynch and AG Edwards, then with ADM and as an options and futures trader with Currency Trading International 13 years ago.

Since then he has been a financial advisor who hosted a live radio show on AM 1000 KCEO for four years, educating callers and listeners of the capital markets and answering questions about stocks, bonds and various investments. “I received my first real hands on education of the markets when I was a futures trader with CTI,” says Stearns. “The experience at that young age gave me a genuine appreciation for the opportunities we have as Americans to follow our entrepreneurial instincts”

Ted has always had a passion to help America’s small business entrepreneur, “the American entrepreneur is the life blood of world economies, I have never met a more creative, ambitious and hardworking class in the world. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs who are driven by good ideas don’t know how to access the capital they need to take that idea they have and exploit it to the larger markets; that’s where I come in to play. I make it easy for that entrepreneur to get the capital they need in order to be highly successful.”

Stearns balances his time between managing his career as a entrepreneur and visionary and working as an advocate for America’s small business owner.

“My experiences have shaped my future and I help I can inspire others to pursue their dreams and lead extraordinary lives as well.”

Ted Stearns’s Specialties:

I am a serial entrepreneur and visionary always seeking to leverage my extensive experience in starting, growing, managing and exiting firms. My niche is to identify strategic opportunities, target candidate partners and develop and execute an engagement process that results in getting and growth business.

Ted Stearns’s Experience

Chief Operating Officer

Wealth Legacy Group, Inc.

(Financial Services industry)

October 2009 — Present (3 months)

Ted Stearns is COO of the Wealth Legacy Family of Companies headquartered in San Diego, California. Wealth Legacy Group, Inc.® specializes in assisting closely held business families with the growth, management, protection, distribution and legacy issues of their wealth - their business succession & exit strategies - and creating intention and integration between their business and personal lives.
Chairman of the Board- US Prov.Patent Holder AdvanceCard

iMerchant Advance

(Financial Services industry)

June 2008 — Present (1 year 7 months)

RATIONALE: iMerchant has been built by payment card industry leaders who share the common interest of building a merchant cash advance company for credit card ISOs/Processors/Acquires. We have capitalized on a market niche which allows merchant acquires to participate in the profits of the cash advance industry without taking any of the risks.

Our strategy is founded on 3 pillars:

1. Equity Alliances with Credit Card Acquirers: iMerchant’s business model is similar to VISA; a company, before their IPO, owned by their partnering banks. Likewise, iMerchant is a company owned by its partnering acquirers. We enable our partnering acquirers to participate in the cash advance business without any of the risk. They receive up to 10% upfront commission on all advances with their clients, up to 25% profit sharing and become equity shareholder in iMerchant, in the event of a merger or acquisition, a large exit value can be realized.

2. Patent-Pending AdvanceCard: The patent pending AdvanceCard, licensed thru Visa and MasterCard, can be used anywhere Visa and MasterCard are accepted. After partnering with acquirer, iMerchant sends the Pre-Approved AdvanceCard out in a in “pre-approved” fashion, much like a pre-approved credit card, we make it extremely easy for merchants to activate and access a cash advance- within 30-seconds.

3. Negative Net Settlement. iMerchant eliminates the risks of negative net settlements by adding the negative balance to the balance of the merchant existing advance which insures our partnering acquirers will always be paid.

Officers:
Ted Stearns: Founder Aegean Capital Partners, Merrill Lynch and ADM Investor
Lore Levin: Associated Asia Investments, AT&T, Mobile Oil

Board Members:
Tom Cannon: Executive Co-Founder First Data Corporation,
Allen Gula: Past Co-President Franklin Templeton Funds, MasterCard Board
Tom Dailey: Past SVP Discover Card, Director Merchant E-Solutions
Stewart Borie: Wharton MBA Merrill Lynch
Founder

Aegean Capital Partners

(Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

January 2005 — Present (5 years )

Aegean was built from concept to execution in 30-days by developing a successful marketing strategy, acquiring relationships with many of the major lending institutions in San Diego, developed relationships with many of the top venture capital firms in southern California, and successfully delivered on what the clients wanted; a secured SBA loan in a fraction of the time.

I have worked with entrepreneurs and small business owners for the majority of my professional life; I understand their struggles, their pains and their difficulties in business. Unfortunately, for many small business owners they are short on capital to exploit their ideas. The goal of Aegean Capital Partners is to make the access to capital easy thru conventional bank and SBA financing.

Aegean’s business model was built to leverage what was already a funding source for public, SBA financing. Aegean takes what is normally a long and complicated process and makes the process of securing a loan, simple. As the company grew thru more liberal credit markets it filled a niche market of securing private capital for pre-seed ventures, investment banking thru PIPE financing and commercial real estate financing thru private equity.
Founder

TradeLine Solutions

(Financial Services industry)

January 2006 — March 2008 (2 years 3 months)

I founded TradeLine Solutions to provide a way for homeowners quickly increase their credit scores leveraging a strategy against in the Fair Isaac scoring model.

The company quickly gained nationwide attention while featured in the WSJ, New York Times, Miami Harald, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, as the company founder, I was interviewed on multiple radio shows and blog interviews.

In 2008, Fair Isaac made an effort to change their scoring model which TradeLine Solutions based their model on. After successful lobbying efforts by the industry, this effort by Fair Isaac was struck down win June 2008 by the House Financial Services Subcommittee and Oversight.
Commodity Trader

ADM Investor Services

(Public Company; Financial Services industry)

January 2001 — January 2004 (3 years 1 month)

Overseen all aspects of trading and consistently among most profitable traders in the sector globally. Instigated derivative (futures and options) trading in company. Successful history of driving and managing change.

Concentrated Markets:

Energy - Crude Oil and Middle Distillates
Softs and Agricultural Commodities - Sugar, Palm Oil, Soybeans, Oilseeds and meals
Derivative and physical commodity valuation
Derivative and physical commodity execution
Relative value arbitrage modeling
Applied macro economic analysis
Fundamental commodity analysis
Correlation and statistical analysis

As a commodity trading for one of the world biggest privately owned company & trading house ADM I actively traded futures on MDEX) as well as cash markets. 3 main markets: 1. futures (MDEX) 2. FOB Asia markets 3. CIF EU markets. Taking outright positions but also playing time spreads and product spreads mainly based on crude oil but also on palm products (rbdstn, rbdoln, rbdpo, pfad
Financial Advisor

Presidential Brokerage / Clearing Bear Stearns / Merrill Lynch

(Financial Services industry)

January 1997 — September 2002 (5 years 9 months)

Having been involved in the capital markets for the majority of my professional life with all facets of wealth management, including investments, financial and estate planning, asset allocation, retirement income planning, banking, insurance, small business financing, SBA and alternative financing.

With Presidential, I had the opportunity to embark on a radio show called Money in the Morning for 3 years. I was heard M/W/F on AM1000 from 8-9am and again from 5-6pm. The show was dedicated to educating listeners about the capital markets, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and to give them an understanding of technical and fundamental analysis.

As a Financial Advisor affiliated with Presidential Brokerage my duties were to provide financial planning and investment portfolio management services for individuals and business clients. Manage and advise clients on non-proprietary, customized, investment programs for their taxable and tax deferred accounts. Gave clients the ability to consolidate a diversified mix of investment vehicles into a Presidential Financial Account.

Products include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, bank CD's, alternative investments and annuities. Each client portfolio is tailored and managed on an ongoing basis based on their unique situation and preferences. For institutions, Bear Stearns provided Wealth Management provides a complete menu of employee retirement and benefit plans. Additionally, if an institution has an established retirement plan, but lacks a local advisor, we provided training for executives and board members.

Licensed:
FINRA Series 66 (Investment Advisor)
FINRA Series 7 (Securities)
NASD Series 3 (Futures and Option contract)
Series 63
Series 65
Life, Health, and Disability Insurance

Specialties

401(k) Management
Estate Planning
Asset Management
Wealth Management
Financial Planning
Fixed Income
Philanthropic Services
Qualified Plans
Alternative Investments
Retirement Planning
529 Plans
Intern

Merrill Lynch

(Public Company; BAC; Financial Services industry)

January 1994 — January 1996 (2 years 1 month)

At the time as an intern with Merrill, I had the opportunity at a very young age to surround myself with highly intellectual people. This experience set the foundational drive for my ambition of the capital markets.
Internship

A.G. Edwards

(Public Company; AGE; Financial Services industry)

1993 — 1994 (1 year )

Ted Stearns’s Education

Army and Navy Academy

1990 — 1994

Additional Information

Ted Stearns’s Groups:

San Diego Republican Party, Autism in San Diego, Race for Autism, San Diego Council on Literacy, JR ROTC, Monarch School of San Diego for Homeless and at Risk, Highland Family YMCA Scholarship Program, Free Wheelchair Mission, Kiwanis Club, Key Club, CONNECT and Global MIT Enterprise Forum.