Adam Roseman: Trust a Key Component of Investment Adviser’s Portfolio

from the Los Angeles Business Journal on the Web…
Trust a Key Component of Investment Adviser’s Portfolio
Special Report: Entrepreneurs in Their 20s
By HOWARD FINE Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

When local investment firm founder Adam Roseman walks into a room of potential investors or clients, he exudes such an air of maturity and mastery in the world of investing that people are “genuinely shocked” to realize that he’s under 30 years old.

At 29, Roseman has an impressive resumé: He joined local investment powerhouse Barrington Associates at just 23 years old and in less than three years built up a clientele sufficient enough that he was able to realize a lifelong dream of starting his own business.

Ten months later, in August 2005, Roseman opened the doors of ArcInvestment Partners, a private investment firm in the heart of Beverly Hills specializing in providing bridge financing to companies looking to go public. With funding from three wealthy families placed by their investment advisers, his firm now holds stakes totaling more than $10 million in various companies, and he has brought millions more in total financing to these companies.

But that’s not all. Roseman is an unusually active power player in the non-profit and political worlds. He’s the youngest board member at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the youngest board member of Big Brothers/Big Sisters Los Angeles. And he’s on the national finance committee for U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“I want to know that I make a difference,” Roseman said of his service on these boards and his political activism.

But his first loves are entrepreneurship and investing. He dreamed of being his own boss ever since he was a child growing up with a single mother, who is a substitute teacher.

Roseman started in the investment business at Lehman Bros. in San Francisco before deciding to move to Los Angeles to join Barrington. Even at that stage, he said he “wanted to learn finance enough, build a skill set and develop enough of a network to strike out on my own.”

When he finally decided to make his move, it was a bit scary. “The most challenging part was leaning on important relationships, convincing them to support me at such a young age in starting my own business.

“In my line of work, sometimes people initially don’t take me as seriously as they would someone older. That’s why I have to prove myself and establish credibility. And the only way you can do this is through performance.”

One of those he convinced was Ken Rickel, a principal in Liongate Capital, a private investment group. They met on a deal when Roseman was at Barrington and Rickel was immediately impressed. “He was young, but aggressive. He really knew what he was doing, way above what I was used to for a person that age.”
When Roseman went out on his own about a year later, “we decided to invest in him,” Rickel said.

Another company that ArcInvestment Partners has helped fund is Cyber Defender Corp., which supplies Internet security software for consumers. Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Guseinov said of Roseman: “He comes across as much older than what he actually is because he’s so accomplished. Most people are kind of shocked when they hear how old he is.” Guseinov said Cyber Defender is in the midst of attempting to go public and called the $4.5 million from ArcInvestment Partners a crucial step in that effort.