Fund Manager Allegedly Defrauded Issuers With Nonexistent Money

A Nebraska-based private fund manager will pay $250,000 to settle SEC claims that he agreed to buy $263.5 million worth of stocks from three private issuers despite having just $11 on hand in the accounts he managed, according to court filings Wednesday.

Ganesh Betanabhatla harmed the issuers—two special purpose acquisition companies and a privately held technology company—by leaving them to scramble for funding, the Securities and Exchange Commission says in its complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Nebraska. One of the issuers had to scale back growth plans and another returned other investors’ money, raising ...