Enforcement: FSA bans "cut and paste" fund manager
The UK's Financial Services Authority has fined a fund manager and banned him from the industry following discovery that he cut information from one document and pasted it in others to create a false picture of the health of proposed investments.
FSA Notice 3 February 2010 (edited)
Simon Treacher was an FSA approved person employed by BlueBay Asset Management plc (BlueBay) as a senior fund manager in the firm's Emerging Markets team. During the period August to October 2008 he carefully cut out and pasted different figures onto seven original broker quotes used in the valuation process of assets in the funds he managed. The deliberately altered quotes led to an uplift in the independent valuation of the funds of approximately USD27 million over three months. This resulted in investors being financially disadvantaged by approximately USD650,000 for which BlueBay has fully compensated them. Treacher then provided misleading information to the FSA about his conduct during its investigation.
Margaret Cole, FSA director of enforcement and financial crime, said:
"Treacher's actions undermined BlueBay's independent valuation process and disadvantaged investors in the affected funds."
Treacher is no longer employed at BlueBay and the FSA makes no criticism of BlueBay in connection with this investigation.
Treacher agreed to settle at an early stage of the FSA's investigation and qualified for a 30% reduction in the financial penalty. Were it not for this discount, the FSA would have sought to impose on him a financial penalty of GBP200,000.
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