AVP Avon Products Inc

Two more companies were targets of apparently fake securities filings, this time Kraft Heinz Co. and Phillips 66.

Two separate filings that said they were submitted by Loreto M. Zamora on behalf of LMZ & Berkshire Hathaway Co. to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday morning claimed to hold at least 10% stakes in both Kraft Heinz and Phillips 66.

Both companies told The Wall Street Journal that the filings are fraudulent and they have contacted the SEC. Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns stakes in the food and energy companies, said in an email that he has never heard of Mr. Zamora.

Attempts to reach Mr. Zamora were unsuccessful, and a representative from the SEC declined to comment on the filings.

Also Thursday, the SEC said it settled charges against private investment firm G Asset Management LLC that had issued what the agency said was a "manipulative" news release in February 2014 announcing a takeover bid for retailer Barnes & Noble Inc. in an effort to make a profit by inflating the book retailer's share price. The firm didn't admit or deny the agency's findings in the settlement.

The apparently phony filings in Kraft Heinz and Phillips 66 follow a similar situation in May, when an entity filed an allegedly fraudulent takeover bid for Avon Products Inc. Avon said it hadn't received such a bid, and the SEC in June filed a lawsuit against a Bulgarian national who it says was behind the scheme. The Journal previously reported the Federal Bureau of Investigation was also investigating.

Mr. Zamora, who also falsely listed himself in one of the filings as director of Kraft Heinz where Mr. Buffett sits on the board, listed a Philippines address in the filings. Someone with his name appears to have an active social media presence, with several recent tweets praising Mr. Buffett and Berkshire.

The stakes were reported on what is called a Form 3, typically a brief filing used to disclose an initial stake by a company insider or an investor with a 10% or greater position in a given company. Investment firms scan such filings for news, and new stakes can often send share prices higher.

The shares of Kraft Heinz and Phillips 66 didn't appear to move on the filings, with both stocks ending down less than 1%.

The SEC has previously said it is examining whether it should make any changes to the public securities filing system, known as Edgar.

The fraudulent filings underscore a weakness in the filing system. It is possible to set up a fake account and make fraudulent filings directly to a legitimate firm's cache of disclosures. To make filings, one only needs to provide Edgar with a street address and a document signed by a notary, according to an Edgar user's manual published by the SEC. The manual warns that intentionally making false filings is a federal crime.

Companies make thousands of SEC filings a day, most of them routine. Third parties such as shareholders and insiders are allowed to file directly to a company's Edgar feed, a system set up to promote maximum disclosure.

Write to Yogita Patel at yogita.patel@wsj.com

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 24, 2015 18:55 ET (22:55 GMT)

Avon Products (NYSE:AVP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2024 to Jul 2024

Avon Products (NYSE:AVP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jul 2023 to Jul 2024