https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/platinum-partners-founder-and-chief-investment-officer-among-five-indicted-1-billion
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Platinum Partners’ Founder And Chief Investment Officer Among Five Indicted In A $1 Billion Investment Fraud
Two Additional Individuals Indicted In A $50 Million Bond Fraud Involving Black Elk Energy, One Of Platinum’s Largest Portfolio Companies
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – An eight-count indictment was unsealed this morning in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charging seven defendants, all of whom are or were formerly affiliated with Platinum Partners L.P. (Platinum), a purportedly $1.7 billion hedge fund based in New York, New York. The indicted individuals are: Mark Nordlicht, the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Platinum; David Levy, the co-Chief Investment Officer of Platinum; Uri Landesman, the former Managing Partner and President of Platinum; Joseph SanFilippo, the Chief Financial Officer of Platinum’s signature hedge fund; Joseph Mann, a member of Platinum’s Investor Relations and Finance Departments; Daniel Small, a former Managing Director and co-Portfolio Manager of Platinum; and Jeffrey Shulse, the former Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Black Elk Energy Offshore Operations, LLC (Black Elk).[1]
Nordlicht, Levy, Landesman, SanFilippo and Mann are charged with securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, investment adviser fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy for defrauding investors through, among other things, the overvaluation of their largest assets, the concealment of severe cash flow problems at Platinum’s signature fund, and the preferential payment of redemptions. Nordlicht, Levy, Small and Shulse are charged with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy for defrauding Black Elk’s independent bondholders through a fraudulent offering document and diverting more than $95 million in proceeds to Platinum by falsely representing in the offering document that Platinum controlled approximately $18 million of the bonds when, in fact, Platinum controlled more than $98 million of the bonds.
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As detailed in the indictment, between 2011 and 2016, Nordlicht and Levy, together with their co-conspirators, orchestrated two separate schemes: (i) a scheme to defraud investors and prospective investors in funds managed by Platinum; and (ii) a scheme to defraud third-party holders of Black Elk’s bonds.
The Fraudulent Investment Scheme
Platinum was a hedge fund founded in 2003 and based in New York, New York. Since September 2011, Platinum was registered with the SEC as an investment adviser. Platinum managed several hedge funds, but the vast majority of its assets were invested through Platinum Partners Value Arbitrage Fund, L.P. (PPVA) and Platinum Partners Credit Opportunities Master Fund, L.P. (PPCO). Platinum charged its investors a two percent management fee and a 20 percent incentive or performance fees. In March 2016, Platinum reported to regulators, including the SEC, that it had $1.7 billion in assets under management (AUM), including approximately $1.1 billion in gross asset value in PPVA and more than $590 million in PPCO.
Between November 2012 and December 2016, Nordlicht, Levy, Landesman, SanFilippo and Mann, together with others, participated in a scheme to defraud investors and prospective investors in Platinum through lies and omissions relating to, among other things: (i) the performance of some of PPVA’s highly illiquid and privately-held assets; (ii) PPVA’s accessibility to cash or assets that could easily be converted into cash; (iii) the purpose of loans raised through investors and the use of those loan proceeds; and (iv) PPVA’s preferential redemption, or investor payment, process. Specifically, Platinum fraudulently overvalued some of PPVA’s highly illiquid and privately-held assets in order to, among other things, boost performance numbers, attract new investors, retain existing investors and extract high management and incentive fees. From 2012 through 2016, Platinum extracted more than $100 million in fees based, in large part, on their overvalued assets. Platinum’s overvaluation of some of their assets precipitated a severe cash crunch, which Platinum initially attempted to mitigate through high-interest loans between its various hedge funds and related entities. When the inter-fund loans proved insufficient to resolve PPVA’s cash crunch, Platinum began selectively paying some investors ahead of others, contrary to the terms of its governing documents.
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PPVA was heavily invested in oil and gas companies that performed significantly below expectations and the valuations that Platinum attributed to them. These valuations were further undermined by the plummeting price of oil, which dropped from approximately $105 per barrel in December 2013, to approximately $60 per barrel in December 2014, to approximately $36 per barrel in December 2015.
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The Fraudulent Black Elk Bond Scheme
From approximately November 2011 to December 2016, Nordlicht, Levy, Small and Shulse, together with their co-conspirators, orchestrated a fraudulent scheme to defraud third-party holders of Black Elk’s publicly-traded bonds (the bondholders) by diverting the proceeds from the sale of the vast majority of Black Elk’s most lucrative assets to Platinum even though the bondholders had priority over Platinum’s equity interests. As early as November 2011, Nordlicht, Levy and Small were plotting to deceive the bondholders. For example, when Nordlicht learned about the relevant covenants associated with the bonds, he sent an email to Levy, Small and another that stated: “Seem like there are bond[s] to be had out there and an additional 60 million is 24 down . . . We [would] have to figure it out . . . I’m sure we can get them in friendly hands if the covenants are going to be an obstacle.”
By late 2013, faced with the fact that Black Elk was effectively insolvent but knowing that Black Elk still possessed certain valuable assets, the defendants pursued opportunities to sell Black Elk’s assets while simultaneously pursuing a fraudulent strategy to divert the proceeds from any such asset sale to the preferred equity stockholders, which were controlled by Platinum, instead of the bondholders. To execute this scheme, in early 2014, the defendants caused Platinum to purchase Black Elk bonds on the open market to gain control of a majority of the $150 million of outstanding bonds. Platinum purchased and then transferred the bonds through a number of related entities in an effort to conceal Platinum’s ownership and control of the bonds.
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