From 1998 to 2007, Andy Altahawi built and led his own investment bank: Adamson Brothers. It is the chapter of his career he founded from nothing, ran through two very different markets, and closed on his own terms — and it is the namesake of the foundation’s scholarship in finance.
The firm
Adamson Brothers operated as an SEC- and FINRA-registered broker-dealer. Founded at the height of one market era and operated through the start of another, the firm did the classic work of a boutique investment bank: advising growth companies, structuring and placing their financings, and guiding them toward the public markets.
What the firm did
- Corporate finance advisory — counseling growth-stage companies on structure, valuation, and readiness for institutional capital.
- Private placements and offerings — structuring and executing financings for the firm’s clients through the regulatory frameworks of the era.
- Public market preparation — the discipline of making a private company presentable to public investors: governance, audited numbers, and disclosure that survives scrutiny.
What those years taught
Running a registered broker-dealer means living under examination — SEC and FINRA oversight, net capital rules, compliance systems, and the daily discipline of an industry where the rulebook is not optional. Nearly a decade of that discipline shaped everything that came after: the respect for regulation, the insistence on documentation, and the conviction that the market only works when the paperwork is honest.
A clean record, on the record
Throughout its operation as a FINRA-registered broker-dealer, Adamson Brothers was never the subject of a customer complaint or a regulatory citation from FINRA or the NASD — a clean record across a decade of multi-office trading, market making, and corporate finance. Mr. Altahawi’s own registered career from 1994 was likewise free of customer complaints. His full regulatory history, including the 2018–2019 SEC Longfin matter resolved by consent without admitting or denying the allegations, is published in full at andyaltahawi.com/record — anyone weighing the firm’s name on a scholarship is invited to check it.
Why the scholarship carries the name
The firm concluded its broker-dealer operations in 2007. Its name could have been left in the archives; instead it names the Adamson Brothers Scholarship in Finance — so that the years spent financing companies now finance students. It is, its founder believes, the best transaction the firm ever structured.