The Securities and Exchange Commission

[Stock]

SEC Charges San Francisco Hedge Fund Adviser for "Portfolio Pumping"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2008-251

Washington, D.C., Oct. 16, 2008 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged San Francisco investment adviser MedCap Management & Research LLC (MMR) and its principal Charles Frederick Toney, Jr. with reporting misleading results to hedge fund investors by engaging in a practice known as "portfolio pumping."

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Additional Materials
Administrative Proceeding No. IA-2802

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The SEC alleges that Toney made extensive quarter-end purchases of a thinly-traded penny stock in which his fund was heavily invested, more than quadrupling the stock price and allowing him to report artificially inflated quarterly results to fund investors. Without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations, MMR and Toney have agreed to settle the charges by paying financial penalties and agreeing to an order barring Toney from acting as an investment adviser for at least one year.

"Fund investors relied on MMR and Toney to abide by their fiduciary duties and put the fund's interests ahead of their own," said Marc J. Fagel, Regional Director of the SEC's San Francisco Regional Office. "Instead, Toney engaged in trading activity which hid his poor performance."

According to the SEC's order, MedCap Partners L.P. (MedCap), a hedge fund run by MMR and Toney, was suffering from dramatic losses and facing increasing redemptions from fund investors by September 2006. Over the last four days of the month, Toney — through a separate fund that MMR managed — placed numerous buy orders for a thinly-traded over-the-counter stock in which MedCap already was heavily invested. Toney's buying pressure caused the stock price to more than quadruple, from $0.85 to $3.72.

The SEC alleges that because the stock represented over one-third of MedCap's holdings, the brief boost in its price inflated MedCap's reported value by $29 million, masking what would otherwise have been a 40 percent quarterly loss for MedCap. Immediately after the quarter ended, Toney reported to MedCap's investors that the fund's investments had begun to "bounce" and that the fund's performance was improving. Toney failed to disclose that this "bounce" was almost entirely the result of his four-day purchasing spree. Following MMR's brief buying activity, both the stock price and MedCap's asset value declined to their previous levels.

According to the SEC's order, at the same time, MMR charged fees to the fund based on the inflated quarter-end asset value.

The Commission found that MMR and Toney breached their fiduciary duties to MedCap and to MMR's other fund in which the penny stock was acquired. Toney and MMR, without admitting or denying the Commission's findings, have agreed to cease and desist from violating the antifraud provisions of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. MMR also will disgorge the higher management fees it received due to the inflated fund asset value, plus interest — an amount totaling $70,633.69 — and receive a Commission censure. Toney also has agreed to a bar from association with any investment adviser with the right to reapply after one year, and to pay a $100,000 penalty.

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For more information, contact:

Marc J. Fagel
Regional Director, SEC's San Francisco Regional Office
[phone]

Michael S. Dicke
Associate Regional Director, SEC's San Francisco Regional Office
[phone]



http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-251.htm



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