The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that KPMG LLP failed to properly audit private debt manager Bridging Finance, according to the Ontario Securities Commission, and the accounting giant now faces up to $40-million in fines. The Globe's Jameson Berkow and Tim Kiladze write that in an enforcement document filed Tuesday, the OSC alleges that KPMG's reports on Bridging gave investors a "false sense of confidence." As a private debt manager, Bridging raised money from retail investors across multiple funds and then lent it out to borrowers who often could not obtain financing from traditional lenders such as Canadian banks. The four Bridging funds that KPMG audited in 2019 and 2020 had a collective net asset value of $1.7-billion. The OSC alleges in the enforcement document that KPMG "failed to perform fundamental audit procedures over the most critical aspect of the financial statements -- the valuation of the loans held within each of the funds." The watchdog said these audits mattered to investors because they were "one of the only sources of independent information concerning the financial health of the four funds." Bridging's collapse led to a tribunal finding that its principals had committed fraud.