Wellfleet Partners, inc.

    A successful businessman missed his rendezvous with death not once, but twice, on the morning of September 11th. With offices in the World Trade Center, he was scheduled to depart New York on Tuesday September 11th for a meeting on the West Coast. On Monday afternoon, for no apparent reason, he suddenly decided to postpone his flight. He called his travel agent and asked if he could take an evening flight instead. The travel agent said that there were seats available on other planes leaving later that day and that he could easily make the scheduling change.
     Now that the morning of September 11th was suddenly freed up, he decided to go ahead and schedule a breakfast meeting at his offices in the World Trade Center instead. He called the meeting for nine o’ clock in the morning.
     Usually a punctual fellow, he tried to leave his home in Monsey, New York, early though, but a variety of obstacles kept detaining him. On the road, he found himself further stonewalled by unusually heavy traffic. At nine o’clock in the morning, he was still en route to work when he heard the news of the terrorists attack on the radio. Shaken badly, he turned back home.
     Later that day, his travel agent called him. “I’m in awe of how much G-d has blessed you”, the agent said. “I just feel horrendous about all those innocent people who died,” he replied in a subdued voice, “so many of whom I personally know. But yes, of course, I am deeply grateful to G-d that I was late for the meeting.”
     “Isn’t that what you meant when you said that G-d blessed me? I was supposed to be at the World Trade Center for a breakfast meeting at 9:00am.”
     “You were also supposed to be on the flight from Newark to San Francisco that the terrorists rammed into the North Tower,” the travel agent said. “That’s the miracle I was talking about. You were scheduled to be on that hijacked flight this morning and you suddenly canceled yesterday, remember?”
     “I didn’t even know you had a 9:00 A.M. meeting at the World Trade Center this morning,” the travel agent continued. “Oh my goodness!” she shrieked. “Do you realize what this means? You eluded death twice in one day. You had a double miracle!”

When we started the research for our Fall newsletter, the items we usually touch upon (e.g. the venture capital and investment banking communities, the stock market, investor sentiment…) took a back seat to the sensitivities surrounding this week/month’s notorious anniversary. I found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the enormous amount of research we normally do to pen our quarterly newsletters. Thus, we beg your indulgence and will use this opportunity to change our normal format: Instead of quotes to exemplify our positions and opinions of the aforementioned financial issues, we will share several updates on the activities of WPs and its growing family of financial service companies as well as offer three short powerful yet true stories of 9/11/01 from materials I recently read. Hopefully for our Winter newsletter we can revert back to our prior format.

    Ordinarily, he would have already have been in his office on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit, but he stayed home an extra ten minutes to help his son with his homework. So he was on the 78th floor instead, on his way to a bank of elevators that would take him up to the 101st , when he heard a tremendous explosion and the electricity went out. Acting quickly, he found the floor’s fire warden and convinced him to evacuate. The closest emergency stairwell was filled with smoke, causing him and about fifteen others to grope around in the darkness until they found an alternate exit. Gingerly, they began to make their way down.
    As they made their descent, he stumbled into a female coworker, who had sustained serious burn injuries in the blast.
    “Please don’t leave me!” she begged. Faithfully, he stayed at her side and helped her labor down the stairs.
    “I can’t make it,” she stopped. “I can’t go on.”
    Ari knew her slow-moving progress could mean the difference between life and death, but he couldn’t leave her.
    He cheered her on, “I know you’re in terrible pain, but you’re doing great! You have got to force yourself to continue on. I’m here, I’m with you.”
    “Don’t leave me,” she cried again.
    ‘I won’t,…I promise I won’t.”
    “Make way,” he shouted to the crowds as they clambered down the steps, “someone is hurt here!” Through frantic and panic-stricken , the crowds obligingly parted, and finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs.
    Outside, as they gasped for air, he saw the first ambulances arrive at the scene. her injuries were serious enough to warrant immediate medical attention. As the EMT’s prepared to place her in the ambulance, With his mission completed, he moved to an area near the burning building and stared transfixed at the horror unfurling. But as the ambulance started to pull away, her frantic voice summoned him back: “Please, please don’t leave me. I’m so scared. Please come with me to the hospital.
    How could he refuse her? He ran back to the ambulance-the first ambulance to leave the World Trade Center-and jumped in. As the ambulance pulled away, the second plane hit. He turned back to glance at the spot he had just vacated. It didn’t exist anymore. Twisted steel and shards of glass had rained down on the exact place where he had just stood just moments before.
    “See,” he later said. “First, I saved your life. Then you returned the favor and saved mine.”

Since my prior Management Team and I decided to sell First Asset Management (“FAM”) in August, 1998, and I started WPs with Zachary Prensky, we have carefully watched the developments and in particular the pitfalls of the financial service industry. Between 1998-2000, the online brokerage business flourished and indeed today between 1/3 and 40% of all trades are done online. In addition, many third, fourth and fifth tier firms started to receive greater scrutiny from the securities regulators due to the “sins of the past.” In April of 2000, the great market correction had a severe and deleterious effect on the financial service industry. Clients were decimated, and billions were lost. Registered representatives or as they are more commonly called “stock brokers” incomes were cut in half. Many of the aforementioned smaller firms either merged with competitors (e.g. Laddenberg & Gains Berland, Whale Securities & Bluestone…) or simply closed down often merely selling their assets to their acquirers (e.g. MS Farrell to Kirlin, Barrington Capital, DH Blair, E.C. Capital…) The vast majority of those firms that represented FAM’s prior competition are no longer in business and many quality brokers are looking for a viable home. In order to capitalize on what we see as a unique opportunity to create a small, highly professional and very personalized financial services firm, WPs, together with several Angel Investors and strategic partners, are proud to announce the formation of Starobin Partners, Inc. (“Starobin”). Starobin was formed to own, operate and manage the business of two or more corporate “franchise or independently owned” branch offices of J.P. Turner & Company, LLC (“JPT”), an NASD Member Broker-Dealer headquarter in Atlanta, Georgia. JPT currently employs over 350 registered representatives in 85 branch offices over approximately 20 states. A full service financial company, JPT clears its transactions through Fiserv Securities, Inc., a premier clearing firm. Starobin’s first office will be headquartered in a shared arrangement in WPs new facilities on the 20th floor of our current building, One Penn Plaza in Midtown, New York. Under the guidance of Neil Scott, a professional with over 20 years of experience who specializes in municipal bonds, preferred stocks and mutual funds, we hope to have a half dozen established professionals by year-end. Our second branch office will be in Long Island, New York in conjunction with a strategic partnership whose details are yet to be finalized. We are cautiously optimistic about our new endeavors, yet in light of current market conditions we are treading slowly and carefully.

This past quarter was focused on aforementioned activities at Starobin, our expected move from the 46th to our future home on the 20th floor (suite 2032), our core of current Investment Banking Consulting Clients and our new ones. We want to welcome to the WPs and Spider Financial, Inc. (bridge loans) families of corporate clientele: Whiz Grill in NYC, NY, EGlobal Link in Long Island, NY, Another Universe.com in Sacramento, California, Fine line Properties in Kent, Ohio, Indivos, Inc. in San Francisco, California, V3 Media in Las Vegas, Nevada, Campus Media Holdings, Inc. once again in Baltimore, Maryland and we are in discussions with numerous others. .

Also, we want to thank our summer intern David Simahee for a job well done and wish him well at Columbia University. I want to personally acknowledge the wonderful 12 years of devoted service of my executive assistant Dolores Lorenzo who recently retired and welcome Michelle-Lee Cona to our firm. We will all truly miss Dolores. Finally, we at WPs congratulate and wish all the best to Cary Sucoff, Harvey Kohn and Fran Anderson whose firm, KSH Investment Group, Inc. (“KSH”), was acquired by Sands Brothers, a NYSE member firm this past month. We enjoyed our time at, and affiliation with KSH and hopefully made friendships that last!

    A prominent Rabbi in the Jewish community and a fundraiser for a renowned institution, stood lost in the labyrinth maze of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11th. He had an appointment with a Jewish businessman who had promised a generous donation for his cause, and in his excitement, he had forgotten the slip of paper on which he had scribbled down the exact location of the man’s suite of offices. Thankfully, however, the Rabbi did have the businessman’s phone number on hand, so he picked up the phone and called his office.
    “I’m sorry to bother you,” the rabbi murmured apologetically to the businessman. “I’m here in the lobby, and I’ve forgotten on what floor you’re located.”
    “I’m close to the top,” he replied. “I’ll come down to you. Wait for me in the lobby okay? I’ll be right down.”
    The businessman darted out the door with the envelope carrying the donation. Just as he reached the lobby, the plane struck his building, demolishing the floor he had just left.
    The Talmud says. “Charity can save your life.”

As we approach the one-year anniversary of one of the most horrible and tragic days in our countries majestic history, it’s a time of somber reflection. How could one man with his twisted and warped ideals and misconstrued version of the Muslim holy book of peace create such significant devastation and stop the world in its tracks. Much has changed since that day but those rights we hold so near and dear: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, freedom of religion, speech …, we still enjoy in these United States to varying degrees. The untimely passing of close to 3,000 Americans / New Yorkers and the destruction of one of our most treasured landmarks remains a powerful wake up call. Several weeks after the aforementioned event, our Commander & Chief and our elected leaders encouraged us all to “get back to normal and live life as usual.” But how could we? If anything, it was an awakening for all of us. Many of us will pause on September 11th, 2002 and reflect back to another date on our calendar that “lives in infamy.” For me, I will remember watching with Eric Liptez , a member of our Advisory Board, our Twin Towers burn through the windows of One Penn Plaza, smoke billowing high into the crisp September air veering off in odd angles like the aborted Challenger space craft a decade ago; I will remember walking home from Manhattan and on the way to Long Island sharing a ride in a taxi with my fellow New Yorkers (all Americans became “Yankees” that day) and finally, sharing the family television room with my wife and children all day and late into the night. Although we’ve made great progress in shoring up our nation’s security, great and powerful forces of evil still exist. May G-d watch over us and our friends around the globe and across the seas.