Former Accounting Manager of Pasadena Storage Business Sentenced to Prison for Insider Trading

LOS ANGELES – A former employee at a publicly traded Pasadena-based company was sentenced today to nine months in federal prison for buying more than 66,000 company shares based on non-public information that the company was about to be acquired at a higher per-share price, and then selling the shares after news of the acquisition became public, resulting in nearly $500,000 in ill-gotten gains, the Justice Department announced today.

Marco Antonio Perez, 60, a.k.a. “Marc Perez,” of Glendora, was sentenced by United States District Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha, who also ordered Perez to serve six months’ home detention following his release from prison. In reaching the sentence he imposed, Judge Aenlle-Rocha highlighted Perez’s role as an accounting manager for the company and his exploitation of that position of trust for personal gain.

As accounting manager at General Finance Corp., a Pasadena-based storage and modular space company, Perez reported to the company’s chief financial officer. He also performed assignments for the company’s chairman, including printing out the chairman’s emails. As a result, Perez had access to material information belonging to General Finance, including offers to buy the company, before the information was released to the investing public.

According to court documents, Perez knowingly violated insider trading law and company policy, and abused his position as a trusted corporate insider.  After learning that his employer’s company was about to be acquired by a larger company at a premium, and before such information was made known to the trading public, Perez purchased stock for his own personal gain and also tipped off others close to him so they could similarly profit. 

In violation of his fiduciary duties to General Finance and its shareholders, and in violation of the company’s policy against insider trading, in March and April of 2021, Perez purchased a total of 66,585 shares of General Finance stock which he was later able to sell for a total of $1,262,815. Perez purchased the General Finance stock after reading confidential emails sent to the company’s chairman in February and March 2021, that concerned the pending sale of General Finance for a price in the range of $19-$20 per share.  Perez paid prices between $10 and $12 for the 66,585 shares he bought.

General Finance was ultimately sold to United Rentals Inc., a Stamford, Connecticut-based company that was the largest equipment rental business in the world. On April 15, 2021, United Rentals issued a press release announcing that it was acquiring General Finance for $19 per share. Prior to this announcement, General Finance’s share price closed that day at $12.17. The day after United Rentals’ announcement, the price of General Finance shares surged from $12.17 – the closing price before the announcement -- to $19 per share.

Within two weeks after the announcement, Perez sold all 66,585 shares he had purchased on inside information, netting a profit of approximately $488,533.

Perez also admitted to tipping off two other people about the impending sale of General Finance, which also violated General Finance’s policy against insider trading. Both individuals acted on Perez’s inside information and made profits of $127,140 and $34,867, respectively.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has a pending civil case against Perez stemming from his illegal activity in this case in which judgment was entered against Perez on October 11, 2023, requiring him to disgorge ill-gotten gains, pay prejudgment interest, and pay a civil penalty, to be determined by the judge in that civil case.  SEC v. Marco A. Perez, CV 23-8079-JLS.

The FBI investigated this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys Ranee A. Katzenstein of the Criminal Appeals Section and Steven M. Arkow of the Major Frauds Section prosecuted this case.