The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday settled administrative charges against a North Brunswick, N.J., portfolio manager and trader, for mispricing private fund investments, resulting in a $600,000 personal gain, according to a news release.

According to the SEC, from June 2016 to April 2017, Swapnil Rege, while employed as a an advisor at a Darien, Conn.-based hedge fund, manipulated the inputs he used to value interest-rate swaps and swap options to create the false impression that his investments for the fund were profitable.

Rege’s use of the different discount curves instead resulted in the booking of unsubstantiated profits in the fund’s accounting records, the SEC said.  His conduct, the SEC's said, artificially inflated the fund's reported returns and caused the fund to pay excessive fees.

The SEC said Rege took steps to conceal his mispricing from the fund's advisor. Because of Rege's inflated valuations, he received a $600,000 bonus, the SEC said.

The advisor fired Rege in 2017 after realizing that Rege’s could not support his discounting methodology. The advisor also closed the fund and returned the excessive management fees to the fund, the SEC order said.

The order noted that, as a result of Rege’s inflated valuations, the fund advisor calculated that it overcharged $577,000 in fund management fees in 2016 and 2017.

The SEC order found that based on the above conduct, Rege aided and abetted and caused the advisor's violations of antifraud provisions.

The SEC said Rege, without admitting or denying the findings in the SEC's order, agreed to a cease-and-desist order, an associational bar and an investment company prohibition with a right to apply for reentry after three years, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains of $600,000 plus prejudgment interest of $49,170.84, and a civil penalty of $100,000.

The release also noted that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also entered a consent order against Rege, involving the same conduct as described in the SEC’s order. The CFTC's order also found that Rege violated the Commodity Exchange Act.

Rege was registered with the CFTC as a representative of two broker-dealers registered with the commission.