SEC charges Chicago-based investment adviser with defrauding CalPERS

April 18, 2013

By Josephine Djuhana

The SEC released a statement today, charging Chicago-based investment advisory firm Simran Capital Management with lying to CalPERS regarding the amount of money managed by the firm. The president and sole owner of the firm, Umesh Tandon, is alleged to have made “materially false and misleading overstatements” on the management of Simran’s assets. The full report reads:

“When responding to a 2008 request for proposal from the California Public Employers’ Retirement System (“CalPERS”), Tandon ignored CalPERS’s minimum selection qualifications and instead falsely certified that Simran managed more than $200 million in assets as of year-end 2007. Simran actually managed only approximately $80 million at that time. Induced by this deceit, and after eliminating other candidates for their failure to satisfy the minimum qualifications, CalPERS selected Simran as an adviser. Tandon touted, and instructed others to tout, CalPERS’s selection when soliciting other clients, but without revealing that the selection had been fraudulently induced. In 2009 and 2010, Tandon fraudulently overstated, and instructed others to overstate, Simran’s assets under management when soliciting at least fourteen other potential clients. Furthermore, Tandon filed, and instructed others to file, false Forms ADV with the Commission and otherwise misled the Commission staff.”

Umesh Tandon has since neither admitted nor denied the findings, but agreed to pay $121,698 in penalties and be barred from the securities industry.