In the silicon gutters of Wall Street, where code meets corruption, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. sits fat and humming. The Chicago outfit calls itself the future of wealth tech – “empowering advisors”, “streamlining data”, “optimising outcomes”. In reality it’s just another machine for turning other people’s money into other people’s misery.

Last time we unmasked QRG Capital Management – Envestnet’s quieter limb – the quant drone running numbers for clients who never ask where the numbers come from. This time it’s the parent itself in the crosshairs. Because behind the dashboards and dashboards about dashboards lies something simpler: theft, rot, and am even bigger filthy investment in Cummins Inc., the diesel-stained darling of industrial deceit.

Envestnet doesn’t just crunch data; it gorges on it. And like Cummins, it’s learned that pollution – digital or diesel – pays.

The Empire of Glitch and Greed

Envestnet’s story starts like every tech fairy tale: two guys, an algorithm, a dream of democratising finance. Fast-forward to now and it’s a $6-trillion asset platform owned by Bain Capital and a cabal of fellow vultures, gone private in 2024 to escape the sunlight of shareholder scrutiny.

Activist investors had already torn them apart for ballooning costs and corporate bloat. Impactive Capital called them “a case study in value destruction”. The CEO was shown the door. The stock tanked. And just before the lights went out, Envestnet’s board sold the carcass to Bain for $4.5 billion – a bargain basement getaway after years of botched acquisitions and internal wars.

So much for innovation. It’s not a tech firm; it’s a scrapyard of half-digested companies lashed together with PowerPoints and buzzwords.

The Stolen Code and the Burned Evidence

Enter the FinApps lawsuit – the real horror show. Since 2019, Envestnet and its subsidiary Yodlee have been accused of nicking trade secrets: financial-data tech lifted straight from a supposed partner. When the case heated up, a court-appointed master found they’d deleted the logs that could prove it – “active participation in spoliation”, to use the polite term. In English: torching evidence.

That’s not innovation; it’s vandalism with better lawyers. The judge didn’t buy the excuses. A jury trial now looms with sanctions attached, and Envestnet’s name reeks of corporate arson. They even tried to sue FinApps’ lawyer for defamation – it was thrown out faster than a bad loan.

When your response to an IP theft claim is “delete the proof”, you’ve already told the world what you are.

The Data Leaks and the Dirty Pipeline

Then there’s Yodlee, the $660-million acquisition turned millstone. Multiple class actions accuse Envestnet of harvesting and flogging people’s bank data without proper consent. Millions of users had logins, balances, and transactions allegedly bundled and sold like confetti to “market research partners”.

In June 2025, with the heat rising, Envestnet quietly flogged Yodlee to private-equity shop STG Partners for a fraction of what they’d paid. Classic move: cash out the carcass, deny the stench. One of the suits settled in principle in March; no admission, of course.

But the pattern’s obvious. They steal code to make the tools. They steal data to feed the tools. Then they sell the tools to the same people they’re robbing. If Cummins pumps fumes, Envestnet pumps metadata – different fuel, same poison.

The Cummins Stake – Greed Meets Diesel

Here’s where the circuits and pistons meet. Envestnet Asset Management’s 13F filings show a fat position in Cummins Inc. – 808,223 shares worth hundreds of millions. That’s nearly twenty times what their QRG arm holds. It’s not passive; it’s a statement.

You don’t accidentally own that much of a company fined $1.675 billion for emissions cheating. You choose it. You back it. You profit from it.

Envestnet calls itself a steward of responsible investment. Sure – if you define “responsible” as funding a firm that rigged pollution tests and poisoned cities. It’s a fintech playing dress-up as an ESG pioneer while shovelling client cash into a diesel-soaked pit. A data parasite investing in an exhaust pipe. Poetic symmetry in soot.

The Private-Equity Escape Hatch

That $4.5 billion take-private deal wasn’t a business move; it was an evacuation. Shareholder suits allege the board sold cheap to Bain’s consortium – ignoring higher offers while insiders cashed out. Morgan Stanley advised, pocketed its fees, and everyone walked off rich.

Now Envestnet hides behind private ownership, away from quarterly reporting, activist oversight, and public filings. Out of sight, still feasting. It’s the corporate equivalent of pulling the curtains and pretending the smell’s gone.

The Filth in the System

Envestnet and Cummins are mirror images: one pollutes with engines, the other with algorithms. Both sell “efficiency”. Both leave a residue of greed. Every client who buys their products, every pension fund that holds their shares, becomes another lung in the same machine.

If you’re an investor thinking this is fine because it’s digital, think again. Pollution doesn’t always come from smokestacks – sometimes it comes from servers.

Envestnet calls itself a wealth engine. From here, it just looks like another exhaust pipe.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Shareholder Spotlight : Envestnet – The Fintech Parasite Funding the Filth