Former KB Home CEO Bruce E. Karatz today was charged with back-dating stock options by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which asserts that “Karatz used hindsight to pick advantageous grant dates for KB Home’s annual stock option grants in order to enrich himself and others at KB Home” between 1999 and 2005.
Karatz neither admitted nor denied the charges, but he has settled them by agreeing to pay more than $7 million. He will not be allowed to be an officer or a director of a publicly traded company for five years.
