SEC Charges VALIC Financial Advisors with Failing to Disclose Payments to Promote Services to Florida Educators

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Houston-based VALIC Financial Advisors Inc. (VFA) in a pair of actions for failing to disclose to teachers and other investors practices that generated millions of dollars in fees and other financial benefits for VFA. In the first action, the SEC found that VFA failed to disclose that its parent company paid a for-profit entity owned by Florida K-12 teachers’ unions to promote VFA and its parent company services to teachers. In the second action, the SEC found that VFA failed to disclose conflicts of interest regarding its receipt of millions of dollars of financial benefits that directly resulted from advisory client mutual fund investments that were generally more expensive for clients than other mutual fund investment options available to clients.