A security guard for a board member of H.J. Heinz Co. traded on secret information he learned through his job, U.S. securities regulators charged Wednesday.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Todd David Alpert, of Kingston, Pennsylvania, traded in Heinz stock and options before the company’s 2013 announcement that it was being bought by an investment group led by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
“During the course of Alpert’s work for the board member and his family, Alpert reported almost daily to the board member’s home in New York, where he served as a dispatcher” in a security booth, the SEC said in its complaint. He was also “involved in various aspects of the personal day-to-day lives of the board member and the board member’s family.”
The agency said Alpert made $44,000 by buying 1,000 Heinz shares and 30 call options before the announcement and then selling on the day the deal was publicized. The unidentified director had been on the board of the company for “several years.”
The complaint said Alpert asserted his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination when he was questioned by the SEC, and that he is now unemployed. The identity of his lawyer couldn’t be immediately determined.
In 2015, Buffett and 3G Capital Inc. orchestrated the $55 billion merger of Heinz and Kraft Foods to form Kraft Heinz Co.
(c) 2017, Bloomberg ยท Christian Berthelsen
