Disclosure Games^®

^{MasTec - MTZ  $44.25  Mkt Cap $3.66 B}

Summary and Opinion:  Put this in the category of misleading management behavior.  Based on documents we recently posted on MasTec (only visible to our paying subscribers), we learned a 2015-16 SEC probe was far more expansive than the company ever let on. In our opinion, the disclosure shortfalls were so severe that they put a blemish on management credibility.

We learned the severity of the MasTec SEC probe from the 298 pages of analytically-rich documents posted with our SEC Investigation Update on MasTec, published 18-Oct-2017. Here’s some of the things these documents tell us:

• Though not first disclosed until Aug-2015, this probe actually got started in May-2015.  This is consistent with a report we published on 11-May-2015, Six Reasons the SEC is Likely Investigating MasTec. 
• As we’d suspected at the time, we now know it involved percentage-of-completion accounting. 
• Multiple rounds of subpoenas were sent to the company; BDO USA, LLC; and, Ernst & Young LP. 
• While company disclosures suggested the probe was focused on 2014, the documents we obtained show it eventually spanned from 2011 well into 2016 (July). 

MasTec left all of the above out of their related disclosures. Surely investors would have considered most all of the items we listed as material to their analysis of the company at the time. 

Purposely keeping information from investors on the scale we noted above is indicative of a company willfully playing Disclosure Games.  If they got away with it once, there’s no reason to think they won’t again.

Were it our capital at risk, even today with the SEC probe behind it, we’d take a pass on MasTec. 

-- Probes Reporter®

To learn more on our process and what our findings mean, click here.