SEC Institutes Settled Order as to Florida Investment Advisory Firms and Owner for Fraud and Other Violations

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDING
File No. 3-22622

April 8, 2026 – The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled fraud and registration charges against Riadh Fakhoury and his Ocala, Florida, investment advisory firms for false and misleading disclosures they made to investors in venture capital funds they managed. Fakhoury agreed to an associational bar and, together with his firms, to pay nearly $2.4 million to the Commission. To the extent feasible, the Commission will distribute monies collected to investors harmed by the violations.

According to the SEC’s order, Fakhoury and advisory entities he controlled and operated, Vestech Partners LLC, Marita Partners LLC, and MI 15 LLC, improperly assured current and prospective investors in the venture capital funds they managed that their investments were “low risk, high return” by touting co-investments by established institutional investors in the same private technology companies that had not occurred. According to the order, they also misled current and prospective investors by overstating their own investment performance and omitting negative information from statements they made about at least three of the technology companies held by their venture capital funds. Finally, the order finds that Fakhoury and his advisory entities negligently failed to disclose certain conflicts of interest, and did not file or cause to be filed any registration statement with the Commission for their securities offerings and no exemption from registration was available.

The SEC’s order finds that the respondents willfully violated the antifraud provisions of Section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5(b) thereunder, Section 17(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Sections 206(2) and 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and Rule 206(4)-8 thereunder, willfully violated the registration provisions of Section 5 of the Securities Act, and caused violations of the registration provisions of Section 7(a) of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Without admitting or denying the findings, Respondents consented to cease and desist orders and to pay $1,764,449.64 in disgorgement and prejudgment interest. In addition, Fakhoury agreed to pay a civil penalty of $600,000, and consented to an associational bar under the Advisers Act and a prohibition under the Investment Company Act. Finally, Vestech Partners, Marita Partners, and MI5 agreed to censures.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by David Neuman and Heather Hosmer of the Division of Enforcement’s Asset Management Unit and Debbie Russell of the SEC’s Home Office, and supervised by David Becker and Corey Schuster of the Asset Management Unit.