Commerce Securities Corporation has been a registered broker-dealer since 1982. It is small on purpose, and it has never done anything other than the work described on this site.
01 — History
The corporation was chartered in the autumn of 1981, in the middle of a Houston energy boom that was about to end badly. Registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission became effective on 8 October 1982, and membership in what was then the National Association of Securities Dealers followed on 15 November of the same year.
Very few firms registered in that cohort are still filing. The ones that are tend to share a profile: narrow mandate, low headcount, owner-operated, and no appetite for businesses they do not understand. Commerce Securities fits that description precisely, and has for four decades.
The firm added a Texas state registration in January 1996 and a California registration in October 2000. Its fiscal year ends in March. Its supervising regulator is FINRA's Dallas District Office.
02 — How we operate
These are not values in the poster sense. They are the operating constraints that have kept a two-person firm on the right side of a regulator for forty-four years.
Most enquiries are not a fit for this firm, and the responsible thing is to say so in the first conversation rather than the fifth. Suitability is not a form you complete at the end of a process — it is the reason a process does or does not start.
Filings on time, books in order, disclosures current. It is unglamorous and it is the single strongest predictor of whether a broker-dealer is still here in ten years. Our record is public; we would rather you read it than take our word for anything.
The firm holds no customer funds or securities and carries no accounts. Client money moves directly between the parties to a transaction. This forecloses a whole class of conflicts that smaller firms often walk into by accident.
Private placements and merger work do not run on quarterly targets. The firm has no production quotas and no sales desk, which means nothing gets pushed to a close before the documentation and the investor list are genuinely ready.
03 — Leadership
Both individuals below hold live registrations under the firm's CRD. Their qualification history, examinations and any disclosure events can be searched by name or CRD number on FINRA BrokerCheck.
President & Chief Executive Officer
CRD #1645982 · With the firm since August 1988
Mr. Gilman has directed the management and policies of Commerce Securities Corporation since August 1988, holding the roles of President and Chief Executive Officer. He has additionally served as the firm's Chief Compliance Officer since November 2004, meaning the same person is accountable for both the commercial and the supervisory side of every engagement the firm takes on.
He is also Trustee of the Mary Payne Family Trust, the entity that holds the controlling interest in the corporation. That combination — owner, principal and compliance officer — is unusual at larger firms and is the reason decisions here are made in one conversation rather than three committees.
Compliance
CRD #1679731
Ms. Weber is a registered person of the firm working in compliance, covering the recordkeeping, filing and supervisory documentation a registered broker-dealer is required to maintain — the books-and-records discipline behind the firm's four-decade registration history.
Her registration history and any disclosure events can be searched by CRD number on FINRA BrokerCheck, the same as for any registered person.
Roles and dates above are drawn from the firm's Central Registration Depository record. Verify them, and search either individual by CRD number, at FINRA BrokerCheck.
04 — The record
Source: FINRA Central Registration Depository, firm CRD #10806. Where this page and the CRD record differ, the CRD record governs.
The firm you can
check is the firm
worth calling.
Read the disclosures, then decide. Everything material about how this firm is registered, what it is permitted to do and how it handles conflicts is written down.