If someone hired you to develop content that they didn’t have any experience or expertise in, then strung you along for months after you gave it to them with “reformatting requests” ; then all of a sudden developed their “own content” transparently based off of your own, what would you do? Should you call him out publicly? Should you initiate litigation? If he changes the formating and a few words he can probably get away with it legally. He also copyrights the material right after he steals it!!! Give him credit for his brazenness that’s for sure.
So what does that say about Matan Feldman and Wall St Prep ?? Certainly reflects poorly on his character. I guess he is not going to be teaching any ethics or ESG Webinars.
Dozens of Matan’s restructuring slides are misappropriated from material that was submitted to him in good faith for a partnership. He has never worked in Rx and hadn’t worked in finance in over 20 years. His business model relies on hiring others to develop content for him, so not sure why he chose to misappropriate it. Beware if you make an agreement with him. He takes without attribution. Half his old Rx presentation was copied right out of Moyer’s book without even a footnote to acknowledge where it came from. I guess when that got old he needed something new to take and claim as his own. Call him or email him and tell him what you think.
matan@wallstreetprep.com
The most recent WSP restructuring is certainly a major upgrade from their prior ones. Their were numerous mistakes and Matan clearly was out of his depth. I do notice that he used a lot of Moyer's content, such as adequate protection for secured creditors being related to the 5ht Amendment. He did recommend to read the Moyer book, but using someone's work without attribution is bad form, even it is just for training videos. Stealing someone's work outright after partnering with them is just flat out sleazy. Not sure why Matan would steal someone else work and claim it as his own, he did not come out of Rx. He was analyst in banking 20+ years ago. That said most of the companies doing finance boot camps and training are mostly run by ex-bankers who never worked past the analyst level, so they tend partner with outside consultants to develop more sophisticated content such as restructuring. Training is a much better lifestyle, and if you own one of the large companies such as TTS or WSP it is probably quite lucrative. Does not surprise me though, Wall St attracts a lot of greedy scumbags, so should not be surprised when the lie, cheat and steal. Just because they work in "training" doesn't mean they dont share a lot of the base impulses of other people on the street.
If you had an agreement, then why cant you just take him to court. He is probably making a lot of money of the videos. I see he charges $399 per video and Rx has become quite a large and popular field for undergrads and MBAs. I would get my share from him before it is too late.
Thank you Grace. I definitely believe in giving attribution to someone for their work, and my slides cite work from law firms and other Rx professionals. I have certainly borrowed from other peoples slides and presentations, and some of it is just factual stuff so not unique. However, in this case, Matan and I did have an agreement, and he had his brother Ziv string me along for months while he was, unbeknownst to me, preparing his own competing product based largely off my work. Matan did not even know what he didnt know, and then he saw the structure and layout of my slides and the light went off for him on how to organize his deck along the BK timeline from first day motions to confirmation. His prior work had no structure and was largely a nonsensical hypothetical model where the first liens took equity when there was more cash on the books than 1L Debt in his example !!!! He also confused the conflated the doctrines of equitable subordination and substantive consolidation, so he clearly has no idea what he is talking about, making his sudden burst of Rx knowledge just after seeing my work highly suspect.
Even worse, he told me "I was not reading between the lines" that my content was not up to WSP standards. I have used this content for over a decade to train Rx bankers, buy and sell side analysts at credit funds and banks, lawyers, my own analysts and interns, so obviously that is bs. I refused to put stupid gimmicks in my presentations such as a life raft headed to a waterfall as a sign of oncoming distress, or a stop signs and emojis. That stuff has no place in the real world, and certainly not in distressed.
If Matan is willing I will do a slide by slide comparison of my presentations to his on a live webinar and let the audience decide if Matan developed the materials himself, or stole them from me. My materials have dates on them going back to mid 2000s before Matan even knew what distressed was, so I am not worried about winning that battle. Come on Matan what are you waiting for!!!
A great deal of Matan's Rx material is clearly taken from slides I have seen used by an expert on the GLG and Coleman Research expert networks. I am pretty sure I know who you are Muad'Dib. Also, you do have a lot of your older materials free on your website for anyone to download, which is much appreciated, but do not be surprised if someone uses them in their own presentations. I agree with Grace, one should always provide attribution for borrowed work, but if it is in the public domain not sure there is any recourse. As you stated, if he changes it around a bit, he will claim its his, even we know he has no Rx experience. Now if the use of the material you provided WSP was governed by a contract, then you have a breach of contract claim and should sue him for breach. If his actions breach the rights of use and he is making money off it, then you have damages. Also, in every contract there is an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, which stealing someone's work would also be a breach of. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, need to keep a sharp eye on Matan and WSP or they will burn you it looks like.
Thanks JT. I agree with all your points on breach and the implied covenant of good faith, you must have been a lawyer before Rx. And yes I was a bankruptcy and distressed credit expert for GLG and Coleman and provided training webinars for them on numerous restructuring topics. My older material is on the web and I am happy to let people download it and learn from it. At the end of the day Matan can provide real comprehensive training in Bankruptcy or Rx and I am not focused on the undergrad market. For me it is the principle. We agreed that I would provide my restructuring and credit content to WSP with minor modifications and that if it was well received it would move to a monetization tier. I spent months being strung along by Matan's brother Ziv who provided non-sensical feedback because he had no grasp of the subject matter and much of it made no sense. Now in retrospect, it appears that may have been the plan all along because I learned about 5 months later that Matan was developing his own paid Rx content and it was blatantly based off of mine. He changed slide titles, for example I have been using slides entitled Determinants of Credit Quality, Matan called his Determinants of Priority. I mean come on. He never had anything or understood corporate structure, structural subordination, payment subordination/subrogation under Section 510 of the Code and all of a sudden they appeared in his webinar.
Moreover, he told me my content was too long and I could not include all those topics, and his is 5 hours long. Again, he still doesnt know what he is doing and there is no comparison to what I provide vs him, but the whole bait and switch and stringing me along while he was developing a competing product stolen from my work that he charges $399 for is just a bridge too far. He needs to be put in his place and learn to show some respect. I believe he teaches for Alix or Alvarez, so anyone at those places if Matan comes to train you in Rx, ask him if he is paying the person whose materials he stole!! Also, feel free to call him on his cell preferably after 12am, 617-694-7786 or [email protected]
That really sucks, I'll give him a call later to tell him I won't be buying anymore from him.
You said you have some older content available on the web, where can I find that?
Went to WSP site and looked at the Restructuring TOC, yes it is clearly largely taken from your BK and Credit slides on your site. Quite obvious. What a POS Matan is for doing that.
what is the site?
Tried to send you a message with the link. I think you are anonymous so that maybe why? Message me and I will send
Here is Matan's # let him know it is not acceptable to misappropriate others work - 617-694-7786 [email protected]
I am considering holding a Zoom trial for him and if he does not show he can be tried in absentia at the end of the month. My zoom can hold 100 people so will try to get 100 analysts on and give him a fair trial
I do not know the original slides you are talking about JT. Can i message you and you send them to me? They are public on what site??
Feel free to message me Grace, will send. I would love to do a public comparison of my presentations which are documented back to 2008 and Matan's and see how he justifies where he got his source material, other than from seeing mine. Once he saw it he could go look for the same content elsewhere and then use that without attribution. I tried to buy his Rx package 2x so I could see the underlying not just the TOC and it would not send to me, so he clearly has my email blocked from purchasing. I will just have a friend buy it and send to me, but shows how low Matan will go and how is trying to cover his tracks.
I got the link from JT, and yes from looking at WSP's Rx Table of Contents you can see the similar slide titles such as Determinants of Priority vs Determinants of Credit Quality in Maud'Dib's or the similar use of Competing Interests, which Matan would have no background to be discussing or adding insight into. If you get your Zoom trial he looks guilty, but take a royalty instead why let him keep using your work for free
Feel free to message me TBoone can send you some materials directly
Velit aut perspiciatis ad consectetur vel et quia. Ducimus nam quas recusandae expedita. Neque id in iste vel dignissimos molestiae impedit.
Ut modi est facilis officiis. Sequi qui sint ut ad distinctio et. Unde debitis aut dicta ex at non placeat. Voluptas non officia beatae eum atque aliquid non.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...