Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
Don’t sell it if it doesn’t work right. That’s an easy lesson learned by Aegon USA, its CIO and Director of New Initiatives. Unfortunately, they were a subadvisor to Transamerica, who had to pay the biggest fine out of the bunch. Transamerica offered, sold and managed quantitative-model-based mutual funds, variable life insurance investment portfolios, variable … Read more »
On August 7, 2018, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, tweeted to his 22 million Twitter followers that he could take Tesla private at $420 per share. There turned out to be little to no truth behind that public announcement. Regardless, Tesla’s stock price rose 6% on increased volume. It took only a month and … Read more »
Add Bad Blood to the top of your to-read list. Bad Blood tells the terrible story of Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. She took the Silicon Valley habit of vaporware and “fake it ’til you make it” to medical devices. The Theranos machines were unreliable, if they worked at all. Bad software will mess … Read more »
These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention. Today’s compliance is more than due diligence and red flags by Alison Taylor in the FCPA Blog Every year for the past decade, BSR has surveyed sustainability leaders at our global member companies on the State of Sustainable Business, in a collaboration with Globescan. To mark … Read more »
With the reduction in the number of public companies and larger companies staying private, the Securities and Exchange Commission is once again talking about loosening the “accredited investor” standard. Much of the concern about private placements is about risk. They seem to be universally labeled as the most risky of investments. The accredited investor definition … Read more »
A few years ago, the SEC had expressed an unwillingness to prosecute CCOs, except in three extreme circumstances: Participating in the wrongdoing Hindering the SEC examination or investigation Wholesale failure Some of the past actions imposing CCO liability have left me uncertain that these are the correct standards. A COO liability case that I missed … Read more »
Lake Success will challenge you with an unlikable protagonist. Barry Cohen is an obscenely rich hedge fund manager who decides to leave his wife and autistic son to take a bus ride to reconnect with his college girlfriend. His travelling companion is a suitcase full of expensive watches. My favorite passage from the book: “Is it … Read more »
These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention. SEC Enforcement & Venue: A Question of Fairness by T. Gorman in SECActions ow is the time for the Commission to step-up and be a leader in the effort to instill a new fairness in the administrative enforcement process. That begins with a recognition that not every … Read more »
The Securities and Exchange Commission brought an action against SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. and its former CEO. They agreed to pay more than $5 million to settle fraud charges for misleading investors about the impact the documentary film Blackfish had on the company’s reputation and business. SeaWorld’s former vice president of communications also agreed to settle a fraud charge … Read more »
VSS Fund Management had a fund that was getting old. VS&A Communication Partners III was in its seventeenth year and still had two portfolio companies. Several limited partners wanted a liquidity option that would get them out of the fund. Providing that liquidity option got the firm in trouble. In accordance with the LP Agreement … Read more »