SEC Charges Newell Brands, Former CEO for Misleading Investors

The SEC said it charged Georgia-based Newell Brands and former CEO, Michael Polk, with misleading investors about Newell’s core sales growth, a non-GAAP financial measure the company used to explain its underlying sales trends.

• Newell and Polk agreed to pay civil penalties of $12.5 million and $110k, respectively
• The SEC said in 2016 and 2017, Newell and Polk took actions that increased the company’s publicly disclosed core sales growth in ways that were out of step with Newell’s actual, but undisclosed sales trends
  • That allowed the company to announce “strong” or “solid” results in quarters it internally described as disappointing ...