Insider trading charges in Cooper-Apollo deal

Washington – The US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two investors with illegally profiting from insider trading in connection with the failed acquisition of Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. by Apollo Tyres Ltd.

Amit Kanodia, an entrepreneur and private equity investor based in Brookline, Mass., and Iftkar Ahmed, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based venture capitalist and owner of the firm Rakitfi Holdings LLC, were named as defendants in a fraud complaint filed 2 April in the Connecticut federal district court.

Rakitfi Holdings and the Lincoln Charitable Foundation, a charity operated by Kanodia, were named as relief defendants in the suit, the SEC said in a news release.

The SEC seeks full return of the money obtained by the alleged insider trading, with interest, as well as civil monetary penalties. In addition, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced parallel criminal charges against Kanodia and Ahmed.

According to the complaint, Apollo and Cooper were engaged in serious merger negotiations by April 2013. Although the acquisition never was completed, Cooper’s stock price jumped 41 percent when the deal was announced in June 2013, it said.

Kanodia tipped Ahmed and another friend about the deal before it was announced, the complaint said.

Kanodia learned about the acquisition from his wife, then general counsel at Apollo, who was intimately involved in the negotiations, it said.

Ahmed began buying up Cooper stock, then sold it for more than $1.1 million (€1.0m) when the deal was announced, according to the complaint. Ahmed later paid Kanodia a kickback by transferring $220,000 to the Lincoln Charitable Foundation, which the SEC said Kanodia used to mask the kickback.

The other friend, identified in the lawsuit as Tippee 1, also profited from the insider trading and paid Kanodia a kickback through the Lincoln Charitable Foundation, the complaint said.

Kanodia and Ahmed were charged with violating federal anti-fraud laws and a related SEC anti-fraud rule.

Cooper shareholders voted to approve the merger 30 Sept 2013, but a series of disputes and lawsuits between Cooper and Apollo caused the formal termination of the merger agreement 30 Dec 2013.