DUBAI (Reuters), -The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), announced Wednesday that it had sanctioned Equitativa for making misleading statements about one of its assets.

Equitativa misled on two occasions, in 2018, about one of Emirates REIT’s 11 assets. This was a Dubai Investment Park school, according to the DFSA.

The DFSA raised concern about Equitativa’s value-based fund valuation practices. It released a statement and said that the fund manager was willing to pay the fine.

Equitativa claimed in a statement the settlement had brought to an end all investigations and that it was now able to “focus its total attention on reinvigorating Emirates REIT, and accelerating its growth plans”.

The Equitativa statement stated, “To be precise, none of these findings alleges any financial inpropriety by Equitativa and its employees.”

Equitativa, despite its default in rental payments in 2018, failed to make provision for Emirates REIT money (EREIT).

Equitativa didn’t reduce the value of the asset in half-year financial statements, despite school not having an operator for next academic year.

“Rather, it was presented as 100% occupied by a secure tenant with a contract for 28 years,” the DFSA explained, noting that EREIT’s profit for six months ended June 2018, was “overstated.”

Equitativa, which later informed investors about the closure of the school, gave “misleading impression” that a new operator was in place and had secured it for next year’s academic year.

Equitativa for 2019 had a complete provision for school money and impairment for asset. Both the regulator as the fund manager confirmed this.

DFSA stated that the manager had agreed to correct its valuation practices. They will also appoint an independent expert in valuation for Emirates REIT’s 2022 valuation reports.

Emirates REIT’s offer to trade $400M Islamic bonds for new paper for Islamic bonds was rejected by investors this year. This is after its finances were strained by the coronavirus.