By Monica Brown
On August 25, 2011, NativeOne became the first Native American owned trading institution of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Don Lyons and Dennis Smith are the co-founders of NativeOne. Lyons is a member of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians located in Cabazon California while Smith has over 30 years experience in financial capital markets and investment advisory services and 12 years of working as a financial advisor for tribes.
NativeOne offers a unique opportunity, as their company states, “Your company simply requests their funds managers to direct a portion of their trading activity to the NativeOne Institutional Trading Desk or directly to our traders on the NY Stock Exchange. NativeOne will donate a portion of its net profits in the name of your company every quarter to these causes. This could give your company continued positive publicity in Indian Country at no additional cost to your company.”
NativeOne services include Equity and Fixed Incomes sales and trading along with offering internships. As part of their Mission statement NativeOne is aimed to level the financial playing field for all native tribes and Canadian First Nations while delivering the very best financial services to its institutional customers.
“One of the goals of the NativeOne companies is to collaborate with Tribes towards achieving greater participation in the financial services industry while promoting the economic advancement of Native American Tribes, Canadian First Nations Tribes, their members and communities” states Lyons.
While tribes don’t always have the knowledge to manage the money they will use money managers. The money managers, in buying and selling stocks, cannot make the trades themselves and will need to go through a broker-dealer. NativeOne, as a broker-dealer is able to buy and sell stocks, bonds, options or government securities for tribal money managers, if the tribal chief financial officer directs them to do so.
Early this month Oregon Health & Science University invited NativeOne to participate in their recent $126,365,000 bond underwriting.
“NativeOne’s inclusion in this underwriting is a groundbreaking achievement”, said Tiani Osborn, Managing Member of NativeOne and former Chairwoman of the Investment Committee for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. “We are paving the way for Native Americans as they assume an active and meaningful role as capital markets participants”.
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