(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Melville ten Cate, a U.S. citizen residing abroad, with fraud stemming from his allegedly phony offer to purchase Textron \u2013 a large U.S.-listed aircraft, defense, and industrial company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that on November 9, 2020, ten Cate and Xcalibur Aerospace, Ltd., a now-defunct private company ten Cate controlled, placed an advertisement in The New York Times announcing a proposed purchase of all existing stock of Textron for $60.50 a share, a 56 percent premium over the stock\u2019s previous closing price. As alleged, the advertisement led to a spike in Textron trading and a subsequent trading halt. The SEC has charged ten Cate with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the complaint, the announcement was false and misleading because ten Cate and Xcalibur lacked the financial resources to complete the transaction, which would have required more than $14 billion. The tender offer announcement allegedly described Xcalibur\u2019s corporate parent as a \u2018diversified global investment company,\u2019 when it had no operations or assets and had been deactivated for failure to pay taxes. The complaint alleges that the announcement failed to disclose that ten Cate and entities he controlled had been the subject of multiple bankruptcy and default judgments and that Textron had previously rejected Xcalibur\u2019s overtures. The SEC\u2019s investigation also allegedly confirmed that the defendant attempted to access the Commission\u2019s online Electronic Data Gathering and Retrieval (EDGAR) system in order to complete the required process for a public filing but was thwarted by SEC officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We allege that the defendant, ten Cate, pretended to run a financially viable business while leaving a trail of bad debts that included never paying for the very advertisement that announced the fictitious offer,” said Carolyn Welshhans, Associate Director of the SEC\u2019s Division of Enforcement. “The SEC will continue to pursue those who disrupt our markets and spread materially misleading information to investors through the media or the SEC\u2019s EDGAR system.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SEC is seeking permanent and conduct-based injunctions, a penalty, and an officer and director bar. In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York today announced criminal charges against ten Cate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Melville ten Cate, a U.S. citizen residing abroad, with fraud stemming from his allegedly phony offer to purchase Textron \u2013 a large U.S.-listed aircraft, defense, and industrial company. The SEC\u2019s complaint, filed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048,16047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news","category-insider-trading-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81201,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81199\/revisions\/81201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}