SEC Charges Audit Firm in Failure to Detect Unpaid Taxes

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) settled charges against audit firm Crowe LLC for $1.5 million on December 21, as a result of its investigation against the firm, two of its partners, and two partners of a now-obsolete auditing firm, after it was discovered the parties failed to detect approximately $100 million in unpaid federal payroll tax liabilities from one of its clients, Corporate Resource Services Inc. (CRS), in 2013.

CRS filed for bankruptcy in 2015 after the discovery, leading the SEC to file specific charges against Crowe for failing to fulfill its responsibilities in auditing the firm. The SEC found that Crowe did not include procedures designed to detect CRS’s undisclosed payroll tax obligations, properly identify and audit the company’s related-party transactions, and other concerns.

The SEC also found that Crowe had a continuing direct business relationship with CRS, subsequently breaching mandatory independence obligations.

Crowe agreed to pay the $1.5 million penalty, according to a statement from the SEC, and retain an independent compliance consultant to review its audit policies and procedures. Several individuals were brought into the settlement case as well, including engagement partners Joseph Medina, Mitchell Rubin, and Michael Bernstein, who each agreed to pay a respective penalty surmount to $25,000 each. Third-party engagement quality reviewer Kevin Wydra also agreed to pay a $15,000 penalty. The four individuals also are not permitted to participate in the financial reporting or audits of public companies for a short period of time.

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“The audit standards are designed to ensure that public accounting firms have reasonable procedures to identify and respond to illegality and issues that pose material risks to the integrity of an issuer’s financial statements,” said Anita B. Bandy, associate director in the division of enforcement. “As set out in our order, the pervasive audit failures of Crowe and these accountants left investors with a misleading picture of Corporate Resource Services’ financial condition.”

Crowe did not respond to questions by press time.

Tags: Corporate Resource Services, Crowe LLC, Lawsuits, SEC

Pension officials hope more flexibility to invest in international infrastructure projects in developed countries will give the program more diversification and help results.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) investment committee has approved a restructuring of the plan’s infrastructure investments portfolio guidelines to allow for more investments in overseas projects in efforts to expand the program and boost already strong returns.

The $4.4 billion infrastructure program makes up just 1.3% of CalPERS’s overall $245.6 billion portfolio, but its investment results stand out.

The infrastructure portfolio returned 17.3% net for the one-year period ended Oct.31, 12.8% for the three-year period, 14.7% for the five-year period, and 15% for the 10-year period. (CalPERS 12-month fiscal results for the period ending June 30, 2018, showed infrastructure returns were even higher at 20.6%.)

The restructuring allows CalPERS to invest up to 60% of infrastructure investments in international developed countries, up from the current 50%, and decreases the minimum amount that can be invested in US projects to 40% of the infrastructure portfolio from 50%.

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The CalPERS infrastructure portfolio is currently made up of 55% US investments and 45% overseas.

International infrastructure assets in developed markets have had particularly strong returns for CalPERS, particularly core international investments, which posted a 41% return for the 12-month fiscal year ending June 30, shows a report by the Meketa Investment Group, the system’s infrastructure consultant.

The September report said that CalPERS had a 29% infrastructure allocation to core international assets.

Meketa said the international core assets were “a key component of Core’s impressive returns” overall, including the US. The core assets produced a 25% return for the fiscal year-ending June 30.

Paul Mouchakkaa, CalPERS’s managing investment director for real assets, played up diversification

in explaining the infrastructure guideline changes at an investment committee meeting on Dec. 17.

“There’s a significant portion of US deals that come in the power and energy space,” he said. “And in order for us to achieve better diversification, we believe this is a measured and thorough approach to allow us to have a broader exposure across different sectors in the infrastructure landscape,” he said.

Mouchakkaa said the infrastructure guidelines change also gives CalPERS “more flexibility

to scale the infrastructure portfolio so that we’re not boxed in focusing only on one geography.”

CalPERS Board President Priva Mathur told fellow investment committee members that she felt the guidelines change was prudent and would not increase investment risk.

“I think this is a sensible and prudent response to the structure of the markets,” she said. “We were hoping that with this current administration’s focus on infrastructure, we would see more deal flow here in the US in the space that we would find attractive,” she said.

A key proposed initiative of President Trump was funding $1.5 trillion in US infrastructure projects but the plan never got off the ground because there was no agreement in Congress on how it could be funded.

Because of strong returns, competition among institutional investors has been intense for investing in infrastructure assets. CalPERS would like to have at least 2% of its assets invested in infrastructure.

Still, its program has grown due to new investments and strong results, from $2.3 billion back in 2015 to $4.4. billion today.

One of CalPERS biggest international partnerships is with QIC, a large Australian money manager.

Back in 2015, CalPERS announced a more than $700 million Asia-Pacific infrastructure partnership with QIC. CalPERS provided capital as part of QIC’s acquisition, along with other institutional investors, of a 50-year lease to operate the port of Melbourne in Australia back in 2016.

While the investment is in the early stages, The CalPERS QIC partnership returned a 12.5% for the 12-month fiscal year ended June 30, 2018, shows CalPERS data.

CalPERS had invested $464 million in the QIC partnership as of June 30.

Tags: CalPERS, Core Assets, Infrastructure, Pension