Darin Pastor

Darin Pastor

Darin Richard Pastor (born February 19, 1971) is an American business executive from Buffalo, New York. He has worked at the financial firms American Mortgage Affiliates, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Prudential, and is the current chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Capstone Affluent Strategies. He was named as one of the "Top 100 Financial Services Branch Managers" by On Wall Street magazine,^[1] and has been nominated as Entrepreneur of the Year by The Orange County Business Journal.^[2] The Pastor family owned the Pepsi-Cola Buffalo Bottling Corp. and the Buffalo Bison Hockey Club. Pastor expressed an interest in acquiring the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes franchise in 2013.

Early life

Pastor was born in Buffalo, New York to Sydney and Miriam (O'Mahony) Pastor, the eldest of two children. He is of Irish and Jewish descent and attended St. Andrews Episcopal Academy in Oceanside, New York. His paternal grandfather was a Jewish immigrant and entrepreneur, eventually securing the Buffalo Pepsi-Cola franchise in his 40s. He has a younger sister and a half-brother. Pastor's father and grandfather were both owners of Pepsi-Cola Buffalo Bottling Corporation, and held various other business interests, including a professional hockey team, trucking company, bottling plant, and a Miller Beer franchise located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Pastor majored in psychology and sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and worked full-time in the family's Pepsi-Cola business. He enrolled in executive management programs and earned certificates from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business.^[3]

Career

Pastor began his career working at the family-owned Pepsi-Cola Buffalo Bottling Corp, where he was a Division Manager and Owner. In 1996, after working at the plant for seven years, Pastor became the owner of American Mortgage Affiliates (NYS EIN: 46-470427), opening seven retail financial center locations throughout New York state. Pastor was also working his way to becoming a senior vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co. during this time, which became his primary role after selling American Mortgage Affiliates to his partner in 2004.^[4]

Pastor worked at JPMorgan Chase & Co. for four years, where he was senior vice president and senior investment manager.^[5] In the fall of 2007, Pastor mentioned during a conference call with the financial advisors under his management that he believed they should move their clients out of the stock market and place their money into gold and cash equivalents. Pastor was reprimanded for his suggestion, and nearly removed from his position. The Great Recession of 2008 took place one year later. Undeterred, Pastor left Chase in 2010 to become territory sales manager for the greater Los Angeles area with Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company, and then Managing Director at the Prudential Insurance Company of America.

Prudential ranked him as the No. 1 managing director in the nation measured by year-over-year sales growth, and he was ranked as the top-selling senior investment manager in the nation during his tenure at JPMorgan Chase & Co.^[4]

From Southern California, Pastor planned to create an independent financial firm of his own.^[6] In October 2012, he opened Capstone Affluent Strategies.

Capstone Affluent Strategies

Capstone Affluent Strategies, an independent wealth management firm headquartered in Irvine, California, was founded in October 2012 by Pastor and five other top financial advisors.^[7] The firm has offices in Newport Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Parsippany, and New York. Within a year of the company’s launch, Capstone grew its staff by over 900% from six advisors to more than 60.^[8] The post-graduate tuition reimbursement program and Financial Advisor Associates program have helped attract top talent to the firm.^[9]

In 2013, Pastor was recognized as one of On Wall Street’s “Top 100 Branch Managers” for his leadership, commitment to advisors, and ability to recruit and retain talent.^[1] He was also a nominee for the 2013 Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award hosted by the Orange County Business Journal.^[2]

Capstone Financial Group, Inc. (CAPP)

In September 2013, Pastor and his associates founded Capstone Financial Group, Inc. (OTCBB:CAPP), a private investment bank that makes direct debt investments, participates in debt facilities, and arranges equity placements for small to middle market companies.^[10] The company includes wholly owned subsidiaries Capstone Investment Banking, Capstone Merchant Banking, and Capstone Affluent Strategies.^[11] The firm focuses on clean technology and industrial growth, capital raising services concerning municipal government interests, and private placements and public offerings of corporate debt and corporate equity.^[12] Later that year, Capstone Financial Group began publicly trading on the OTC Bulletin Board after acquiring Creative App Solutions and its ticker symbol CAPP.^[13]

Pastor owns a 68% stake of Capstone Financial Group, Inc. and his current net worth is over $402 million.^[14]

Family

Ruby, Sam, and Al Pastor, Darin’s grandfather and great-uncles, bought the Buffalo Bison Hockey Club of the American Hockey League in 1956 when the previous owner threatened to move the team. With many future National Hockey League stars on the roster, the team went on to win the Calder Cup in 1960, 1964, and 1970 and became one of the top clubs in minor league hockey with an average attendance of 10,500 per game.^[15] The Pastor family sold the Bisons in 1971 shortly after the franchise joined the NHL as the expansion Buffalo Sabres.^[16]

The family established the Sam Pastor Pepsi Memorial Hockey Tournament in 1975, which was the area’s largest youth hockey event, attracting approximately 12,500 people every spring. Held in March and April, the two-month long tournament attracts as many as 300 teams from Canada, Pennsylvania, and Ohio^[17] and provided an estimated $6.75 million boost to the local economy each year.^[15]

The Pastor family owned the Pepsi-Cola Buffalo Bottling Corp., a regional Pepsi distribution business that grew from a single-truck operation in 1936 to a successful upstate New York plant in 1954, until they eventually sold the company in 2002.^[18] Pepsi Buffalo won the naming rights to the Amherst skating and recreational center on May 11, 1998, bidding $550,000 plus incentives that included scoreboards, marketing dollars, and tournament underwriting for the $18.3 million center that opened in the fall of 1998.^[17]

Phoenix Coyotes

Pastor announced on March 29, 2013 that he had formed an exploratory committee in an effort to acquire the Phoenix Coyotes franchise of the NHL.^[19] Pastor’s group, which included several seasoned municipal financing veterans, as well as immediate family members, formally submitted its bid to purchase the team to the NHL on May 10, 2013. Pastor, who hired Scottsdale-based law firm Kutak Rock LLP to help guide the submission of his proposal, sought to keep the Coyotes in Glendale and developed a plan to boost youth hockey participation in the region by partnering with schools, charities, and team sponsors in this area.^[20] Pastor’s bid to purchase the team was rejected by the NHL on May 13, 2013.^[21]

References