SEC censures Arizona RIA for false ADVs

The Securities and Exchange Commission has censured Phoenix, Ariz.-based adviser Mark H. Love and his firm, LKL Investment Counsel, and ordered the firm to pay a $100,000 penalty in connection with the filing of misleading ADV forms. The SEC said that it ordered Mr. Love and his firm to cease and desist from further violations of the Advisers Act. Starting in 2009, according to the agency, Mr. Love began recommending that certain LKL clients invest in private funds without disclosing on LKL's ADV that he held managerial interests in those funds and that he stood to receive fees and a share of investment profits from those funds. Clients who invested in the private funds did know of Mr. Love's involvement with the funds, yet from at least 2010 to 2015, Parts 1 and 2 of the firm's ADV falsely stated that Mr. Love had no outside financial industry activities or affiliations and did not have any ownership or proprietary interests in client transactions. During an early 2016 SEC examination of LKL, the agency said, Mr. Love made these same misrepresentations to examiners and failed to produce requested documents to them regarding certain of his private funds. It later failed to deliver a revised Form ADV Part 2 brochure after it made a material change in its reported assets under management.