(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a California-based company and two executives with using baseless financial projections and other misleading statements to defraud investors in a venture to manufacture environmentally-friendly building materials.
The SEC alleges that Enviro Board Corporation and its co-chairmen/CEOs Glenn Camp and William Peiffer raised approximately $6 million from investors during a four-year period by using documents predicting company earnings ranging from $18 million to $95 million per year. They allegedly lacked any reasonable basis for such estimates amid persistent manufacturing problems plaguing the company since its inception. Enviro Board claimed its green materials had already been used in residential and commercial construction projects, yet the company has never developed a commercially viable mill to manufacture its products. Among other alleged misrepresentations to investors were claims to have secured $161 million in financing from a “vendor” that turned out to be nothing more than an entity created by Peiffer that lacked the resources to actually make such a loan.
Meanwhile, according to the SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles, Camp and Peiffer and their primary salesman Joshua Mosshart have paid themselves approximately $2.6 million in compensation out of investor funds. Mosshart also is named in the SEC’s complaint and charged with selling unregistered securities and acting as an unregistered broker.
“We allege that Enviro Board appealed to investors’ desires to benefit the environment by creating the false impression that it was on the cusp of lucrative operations. But Camp and Peiffer were merely lining their own pockets while their unviable manufacturing process has failed to commercialize after nearly 20 years of trying,” said Michele Wein Layne, Director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office.
The SEC’s complaint charges Enviro Board, Camp, and Peiffer with violating Section 17(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 as well as Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5(b). The complaint further charges Camp and Mosshart with violating Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act and Mosshart with violating Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act. The complaint seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest and penalties, and officer-and-director bars against Camp and Peiffer.
