(Bloomberg) -- An investment adviser will pay more than $120,000 to resolve U.S. regulatory claims that he lied to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and other clients about the amount of money his firm managed.
Umesh Tandon, 37, falsely told Calpers in May 2008 that his Chicago-based firm Simran Capital Management LLC met the retirement fund’s minimum requirement of having at least $200 million of assets under management, the Securities and Exchange Commission said today in an administrative order. Simran, who now lives in Texas, managed about $80 million at the time.
On more than a dozen occasions from 2008 to 2011, Tandon and Simran employees falsely inflated the firm’s assets under management with retirement systems and other prospective clients, the SEC said.
“Tandon deliberately undermined the Calpers screening process by grossly misrepresenting his firm’s purported assets under management,” Merri Jo Gillette, director of the SEC’s Chicago office, said in a statement. “To make matters worse, he then used his association with Calpers to lure other public institutional investors under false pretenses.”
Tandon, who also agreed to be barred from the securities industry, didn’t admit or deny the allegations in settling the claims. A phone call to Tandon’s attorney wasn’t immediately returned.
