Mickelson to Pay SEC

[boogielicious]

Not the College SEC either.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/19/news/companies/phil-mickelson-sec-insider-trading/

Quote

Phil Mickelson to pay SEC for profit he made on inside stock tip

by Chris Isidore and Ahiza Garcia 

Golfer Phil Mickelson will pay the Securities and Exchange Commission the $931,000 profit he made on an insider stock tip.

Two other individuals allegedly involved in the insider trading case with Mickelson are Las Vegas investor and gambler Billy Walters and Thomas Davis, the former chairman of Dean Foods. Walters and Davis were named in federal criminal indictments unsealed Thursday.

Mickelson was named as a "relief defendant" in the case, meaning he benefited from wrongdoing but is not accused of any illegal act.

"The complaint does not assert that Phil Mickelson violated the securities laws in any way. On that point, Phil feels vindicated," said the statement released by his attorney, former White House counsel Gregory Craig. "At the same time, however, Phil has no desire to benefit from any transaction that the SEC sees as questionable."

 

[saevel25]

12 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Golfer Phil Mickelson will pay the Securities and Exchange Commission the $931,000 profit he made on an insider stock tip.

OUCH! 

Phil needs to watch who handles his money 

[Rainmaker]

That's gotta hurt - even for Phil. 

This article a bit more info:

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/mickelson-named-relief-defendant-sec-lawsuit/?cid=eref:nbcnews:text
 

Quote

 

Mickelson had a history of placing bets with Walters and owed him money when, in July 2012, Walters called Mickelson and conveyed "material nonpublic information" regarding Dean Foods stock, which he "urged" Mickelson to purchase.

Mickelson did so the following day, purchasing approximately $2.4 million of the stock across three different brokerage accounts. It marked his first-ever purchase of Dean Foods stock, and according to the lawsuit his collective brokerage balances before those transactions was less than $250,000.

The stock in question rose 40 percent approximately one week later on the heels of strong second-quarter earnings, allowing Mickelson to make $931,000 in profit.

 

 

Something bothers me, though, about this.  According to the article, Phil had barely ever invested in stocks before this deal.  So some guy that he owes gambling debt to calls him up, tells him about this stock, urges him to buy.  So he buys 2million dollars worth the next day?    Sounds a little bit "grey area" to me, lol. 

[Gator Hazard]

Only politicians are allowed to benefit from insider trading knowledge. Phil should have known better.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177496734/how-congress-quietly-overhauled-its-insider-trading-law

 

11 minutes ago, Rainmaker said:

That's gotta hurt - even for Phil. 

This article a bit more info:

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/mickelson-named-relief-defendant-sec-lawsuit/?cid=eref:nbcnews:text
 

 

Something bothers me, though, about this.  According to the article, Phil had barely ever invested in stocks before this deal.  So some guy that he owes gambling debt to calls him up, tells him about this stock, urges him to buy.  So he buys 2million dollars worth the next day?    Sounds a little bit "grey area" to me, lol. 

Once upon a time while living in Chicago I interviewed for a financial analyst position with Dean Foods in the NW Burbs. On my second interview which was with the director of finance he wanted to know all about my growing up in Vegas. Was my mother a showgirl?  Was my dad in the mafia??  I almost responded that I came to Chicago via Las Vegas and went to school with everyone from Wayne Newton to Spilatros kids so you figure it out, and oh, btw if you like breathing better make sure I get the job.

Extreme sarcasm here, my family was never in the mafia and I am six foot tall blonde white guy which is what amazed me. I wanted to say "do I look like the mafia???"  Ironically my dad actually does look like a gangster being he is Spanish and Sicilian but he was never in it.  I should have shown him a pic of my dad and told him to do the math and make sure I get a nice signing bonus. 

Edited to say that I am in no way saying Wayne Newton was mafia. Spilatro on the other hand was damn proud to be a gangster. 

Edited May 19, 2016 by Gator Hazard

[DeadMan]

Pretty stupid of Phil, especially to do it in such a brazen manner. But he probably has more money riding on the Warriors to win the NBA title than he had to pay back because of this, so no big deal to him.

[Patch]

Back when all this came out, and the name Billy Walters was included in the report, I knew something not so good was going to come up for Philly Mick. .9 million pay back is not that big of deal for. One thing in his favor was a good lawyer in this little business arrangement. 

[jgreen85]

you break the law and all you have to do is return the profit? If I rob a bank, I don't go to jail as long as I return everything I took?

[colin007]

Yeah, this doesn't pass the smell test for me. Sounds like he broke the law, but what do I know...

[Buckeyebowman]

People break the law all the time. Have you been ticketed every single time you broke the speed limit? And don't try telling us you never have, because we all know that's BS! Of course the government is working to correct that with the use of cameras and other detectors. It's a great revenue enhancer!

So Phil got a tip on a stock. And he gets in trouble. What about Harry Reid? Senator from Nevada, who had knowledge of where a major highway, and bridge, were going to cross the Colorado River gorge between Nevada and Arizona? He bought land on both sides of the gorge and cleaned up! This is in reference to Gator Hazard's post. Not exactly a stock tip, but it works much the same!

[boogielicious]

18 hours ago, Rainmaker said:

That's gotta hurt - even for Phil. 

This article a bit more info:

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golf-central-blog/mickelson-named-relief-defendant-sec-lawsuit/?cid=eref:nbcnews:text
 

 

Something bothers me, though, about this.  According to the article, Phil had barely ever invested in stocks before this deal.  So some guy that he owes gambling debt to calls him up, tells him about this stock, urges him to buy.  So he buys 2million dollars worth the next day?    Sounds a little bit "grey area" to me, lol. 

 

10 hours ago, colin007 said:

Yeah, this doesn't pass the smell test for me. Sounds like he broke the law, but what do I know...

Smells a little like Phil cooperated with the SEC. No charges for him, but the other guy got nailed.

[newtogolf]

People get stock tips all the time, watch Cramer and he'll give you a bunch of tips too.  My guess is Phil knew a guy who told him this was a can't miss stock tip, Phil trusted the guy and Phil went in big.  Unless Phil is the guy that is on the inside or there's proof he knew it was a true insider tip then he's not much different than the buyer of stolen goods who didn't know the goods were stolen.  In those cases, you return the stolen goods and you're out the cash you spent to buy them.  

Yes there is some ambiguity, but based on what I read there was no proof Phil knew and he cooperated.  Phil is not only out his profit, but also taxes he paid on it, and lawyer fees, I'm sure this cost him closer to $1.5M or more.  

[Gunther]

He'll save that much in state taxes in 1 year when he makes that move to FL he's been contemplating.  Drop in the bucket for him.

[Shindig]

Just heard about this on the morning television.  I keep hearing more about Phil's gambling problem, hope he gets some help for this so he isn't forced to play baseball for a year or anything like that.  Glad he didn't go the Martha Stewart route on this too. 

[BallStriker]

Sadly, PMick have made about 10x more money if he would have waited for the IPO and probably would have avoided the suspicion from the short-swing profits

[DeadMan]

Interesting follow-up on this story from Golf Digest: http://www.golfdigest.com/story/phils-insider-trading-escape

Bottom line, Phil got real lucky here. He likely committed a crime and didn't get charged because the law was in flux when the case was brought. This is/was a much bigger deal than anybody ever let on.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

Bottom line, Phil got real lucky here. He likely committed a crime and didn't get charged because the law was in flux when the case was brought. This is/was a much bigger deal than anybody ever let on.

Yep. He got lucky.

Phil could easily be in jail right now.

[Zekez]

On 5/19/2016 at 2:31 PM, jgreen85 said:

you break the law and all you have to do is return the profit? If I rob a bank, I don't go to jail as long as I return everything I took?

LOL....you're not important enough to matter and get the different treatment.

On 5/19/2016 at 10:31 PM, Buckeyebowman said:

People break the law all the time. Have you been ticketed every single time you broke the speed limit? And don't try telling us you never have, because we all know that's BS! Of course the government is working to correct that with the use of cameras and other detectors. It's a great revenue enhancer!

So Phil got a tip on a stock. And he gets in trouble. What about Harry Reid? Senator from Nevada, who had knowledge of where a major highway, and bridge, were going to cross the Colorado River gorge between Nevada and Arizona? He bought land on both sides of the gorge and cleaned up! This is in reference to Gator Hazard's post. Not exactly a stock tip, but it works much the same!

So why isn't Harry Reid in jail?

[BaconNEggs]

I don't know what Harry Reid did in regards to purchasing land... not much on google... but in regards to insider trading, Congressional members and their staffers are exempt from insider trading laws.

 

I believe one study showed that the returns of portfolios of members of Congress were typically about 6% higher than the relevant benchmark-- for anyone who doesn't follow markets, this is near impossible to return on an annualized basis in aggregate without participating in some form of illegal market bets... front running, insider trading, etc. But don't worry, just illegal for the little guy.