SEC alleges Fort Worth man with under $1 in account made fraudulent $200M investment bid
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a Fort Worth man with making a fraudulent investment bid worth $200 million, the commission announced this week.
In a statement, the SEC said Matthew Brown and his company, Matthew Brown LLC, made an unsolicited offer to invest $200 million in Virgin Orbit, a company owned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.
In reality, officials with the SEC said, Brown had less than $1 in his bank account.
The complaint also alleges that Brown told the CEO of Virgin Orbit that he had previously invested hundreds of millions of “personal capital” in other aerospace companies. He sent Virgin Orbit a fake screenshot that purported to show a balance of more than $182 million in his company’s account, the SEC said.
Brown appeared on CNBC in March of 2023 to talk about the offer, despite having signed a nondisclosure agreement with Virgin Orbit.
He also claimed to have obtained a law degree from Southern Methodist University, but SEC officials said they later uncovered that he had never graduated from college.
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Negotiations with Virgin Orbit collapsed after Brown failed to place funds in escrow and refused to respond to the company’s discovery requests, the SEC said.
Virgin Orbit filed for bankruptcy in April 2023.
In its complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, the SEC is seeking civil penalties, permanent injunctions and an officer-and-director ban against Brown.
