SEC Bars Former IDM Chief From Dealing in Securities : Sanctions: Concerns of firm’s auditors were allegedly kept secret from investors, who lost about $300 million.

The former president of a once-high-flying Long Beach development firm has been barred from the securities industry for three years by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused him of failing to disclose severe financial trouble while the firm continued to recruit investors.

IDM Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1992, revealing estimated losses of more than $300 million to about 15,000 Californians, some of whom put their entire savings in IDM partnerships.

The SEC announced Monday that it had charged Larry Uyeda of Fullerton with violations of civil anti-fraud and securities disclosure statutes. Uyeda, 50, accepted the SEC sanctions without admitting or denying the allegations.

As IDM’s president and chief operating officer, Uyeda approved the financial statements that IDM and its partnerships were required to file with the SEC.

Uyeda’s former boss, IDM founder Michael J. Choppin of Long Beach, was not cited in the SEC order. The commission lacked evidence that Choppin was involved in the filings, said Daniel Nathan, who headed the agency’s probe.

Neither Uyeda nor Choppin could be reached for comment.

Under Choppin, IDM became one of Southern California’s most successful commercial real estate developers in the 1970s and ‘80s, generating 15% annual returns for investors while putting up offices, apartment complexes and such eye-catching projects as the 27-story Greater Los Angeles World Trade Center in Long Beach.

IDM partnerships raised about $400 million from investors as of Sept. 30, 1990, the SEC said.

But in February, 1991, IDM’s accounting firm, KPMG Peat Marwick, determined during an audit that the weakening California real estate market had eroded the value of properties serving as collateral on the loans. Five IDM partnerships faced loan losses of $60 million and four of the five might fail, Peat Marwick warned.

IDM partnerships disputed the audit, fired Peat Marwick and later filed statements with the SEC that “failed to accurately disclose” Peat Marwick’s concerns, according to the SEC order.

Furthermore, according to the SEC, IDM failed to disclose the dispute with Peat Marwick in an offering circular for a new partnership. About $4.4 million was raised from 109 investors in that partnership after the Peat Marwick firing in April, 1991, the SEC said.

The SEC had contemplated fining Uyeda for the violations but decided against it after he persuaded the agency that he was unable to pay, Nathan said.

When IDM emerged from Chapter 11 in March, 1993, it distributed 5 million shares of stock in the reorganized company to 15,000 investors whose partnerships had gone bust. But there is currently no market for the stock, and its worth is in doubt.