SEC Charges Newell Brands and Former CEO With Misleading Investors
29 Setembro 2023 - 10:21AM
Dow Jones News
By Will Feuer
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Sharpie and
Yankee Candle maker Newell Brands as well as its former chief
executive officer for misleading investors over
financial-accounting practices.
Newell has agreed to pay $12.5 million in civil penalties to
settle the charges. Michael Polk, who was CEO of Newell from 2011
to 2019, agreed to pay $110,000. Neither admitted or denied the
alleged violations.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2020 that the SEC was
investigating sales and accounting practices at the
consumer-products maker.
In 2016 and 2017, Newell and Polk boosted the company's publicly
disclosed core sales growth in ways that were out of step with
Newell's actual but undisclosed sales trends, the SEC said. The
agency said Newell announced "strong" or "solid" results in
quarters it internally described as disappointing due to shortfalls
in sales.
Newell pulled sales forward into earlier quarters without
adequate disclosure and engaged in accounting practices that were
inconsistent with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles,
according to the SEC.
"Today's order finds that Newell's former CEO issued an
instruction to 'scrub' the company's accruals after he learned that
the company was projecting a 'massive' and 'disappointing' miss for
the quarter," said Mark Cave, associate director of the SEC's
division of enforcement.
Polk and Newell didn't immediately respond to requests for
comment.
Write to Will Feuer at Will.Feuer@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 29, 2023 09:06 ET (13:06 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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