A Boise, Idaho, investment advisor has been barred from the financial industry by the SEC for misleading investors into thinking the hedge fund he was putting their money in was profitable, the SEC announced Tuesday.
Gregory Bied and the hedge fund manager, Gold Mountain Management LLC, both of Boise, Idaho, have agreed to pay $200,000 without admitting guilt for giving false information to investors.
Bied and Gold Mountain solicited investors for a hedge fund, Del Rey Management LP, that invested in a wide range of securities, including stocks, options and warrants, the SEC says.
At its peak in 2009, Del Rey Management had $16.4 million in investments from 21 investors. It subsequently lost money when Gold Mountain took over its management until it was dissolved in 2014.
From 2012 to 2014, Bied and Gold Mountain sent quarterly reports to investors saying the fund was making profits when it had in fact lost 75 percent of its value before it was dissolved. As an example, the SEC said, one quarterly statement told investors they made 13 percent on their money, when Del Rey was losing funds.
At the end, Del Rey had approximately $2.4 million in assets. Bied wrote a letter in 2014 to all Del Rey investors informing them that he was closing the fund and that the fund “sustained substantial trading losses [that] were not accurately reported … in quarterly reports and other correspondence,” the complaint says.
