On 30 May 2024, a Form ADV became publicly searchable in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s database for a firm called Invesco Alpha Inc. The filing said the company operated from office space at 9888 West Belleview Avenue in Denver, Colorado. It named Chi Keong Tang as chief executive officer. It stated that the firm managed $5 million in assets in the United States, that it advised a private fund, and that a separate registered investment adviser reported information about that fund on its own Form ADV. It listed a main telephone number for the Colorado office carrying a (302) area code, which is Delaware. According to the SEC, the private fund cannot be found in any other filing, its identification number appears nowhere, and a search of the Commission’s public reporting company database returns nothing. When examiners asked Invesco Alpha to produce records substantiating what it had filed, it did not.
The firm has no connection to Invesco Ltd., the Atlanta-headquartered asset manager that runs well over a trillion dollars and has operated under that name since the 1930s. On 9 September 2026, United States District Judge Nina Y. Wang entered a final judgment by default against Invesco Alpha, ordering a civil penalty of $1,182,254 and permanently enjoining the company, its owners and its executive officers from ever again filing a Form ADV as an exempt reporting adviser.
A Case Nobody Turned Up To
The procedural history is short because one side never appeared. The SEC filed its complaint in the District of Colorado on 13 November 2025. Service was perfected on 19 November, five days after the summons and complaint were sent by certified mail, under Colorado law. Invesco Alpha’s deadline to answer was 10 December 2025. It did not answer or otherwise respond.
The Clerk of Court entered default on 2 January 2026. Magistrate Judge Kathryn A. Starnella recommended on 25 August 2026 that the Commission’s application for final judgment by default be granted. No party objected, and the time to do so elapsed. Judge Wang adopted the recommendation and entered judgment on 9 September.
A default is not a finding after contested proceedings, and it is worth being precise about that. The allegations were deemed admitted because nobody contested them. What the case establishes is that a company which filed a form with a federal regulator, claiming an office, a chief executive, assets and a client fund, then declined to defend any of it when asked.
Six Firms, One Template
Invesco Alpha was not charged alone. In November 2025 the SEC brought parallel actions against six purported investment advisers, filing against Bluesky Eagle Capital Management and Supreme Power Capital Management in the Southern District of New York, and against AI Financial Education Foundation, AI Investment Education Foundation, Invesco Alpha and Adamant Stone Limited in the District of Colorado.
The claimed figures differ just enough to look individual. Bluesky Eagle, Supreme Power, AI Financial and Adamant Stone each said they managed $10 million in the United States. Invesco Alpha said $5 million. AI Investment Education Foundation said $1 million. Every one of them claimed to advise a private fund, and every one claimed that a separate registered investment adviser reported information about that fund on its own Form ADV. In each case the SEC could not locate the fund.
Two of those names connect to a larger matter. Bluesky Eagle and Wisdom Capital were used, according to federal prosecutors, to lend credibility to a stock manipulation scheme in which foreign brokerage accounts sold up to $211 million of shares while co-conspirators posed as advisers in WhatsApp chats. Guanhua Su, a Hong Kong resident indicted in the District of Columbia in November 2025, is alleged to have created at least ten shell entities filing fraudulent Forms ADV between February 2023 and March 2025.
Why the Filing Is Worth Making At All
The value of a Form ADV to an operation like this lies in a gap between what the document is and what it looks like. An exempt reporting adviser is exempt from full registration but must still file. The Commission does not review, approve or verify those submissions before they become publicly searchable. Filing one means completing a form, not passing a check.
What it produces is an entry in a government database, sitting alongside genuine advisers, carrying real-looking identification numbers generated by the filing process itself. A prospective investor who searches the firm’s name finds it there. That is the entire product. The same mechanism was used by Ichcoin Tech Corp., which claimed an Albany office it did not have and used a CRD number belonging to an 87-year-old stranger, and by 38 further entities the SEC moved against in August 2026 over Colorado addresses where they had no presence and audits by accounting firms that appear in no public registry.
A Borrowed Name
The choice of name deserves its own mention. Invesco Ltd. is one of the largest asset managers in the world. A newly created entity calling itself Invesco Alpha Inc. and filing as an investment adviser acquires, at no cost, whatever recognition attaches to the first word. Nothing in the SEC’s complaint turns on the name, and the charges concern the misrepresentations in the filing rather than any trademark question. But for an investor running a quick search, the resemblance is the point at which scepticism is least likely to engage.
The permanent injunction covers more than the company. It bars Invesco Alpha, its owners and its executive officers from filing a Form ADV as an exempt reporting adviser. That wording is deliberate, because the corporate shell is the least durable part of these structures and the people behind it are the part that moves on.
Conclusion
Invesco Alpha told a federal regulator it had a Denver office, a chief executive named Chi Keong Tang, $5 million under management and a private fund client. The phone number for the Denver office was a Delaware one. The fund appears in no filing anywhere. When examiners asked for records, none came. When the SEC sued, nobody answered, and default was entered in January. A judge imposed a $1,182,254 penalty in September and barred the company, its owners and its officers from ever filing as an exempt reporting adviser again. Five other firms were charged the same day on the same template, each claiming a fund that could not be found.
