Nov. 11–A Central Florida securities brokerage has become one of the first stock firms in the country to acknowledge that some of its employees were involved in after-hours trading of mutual funds,an illegal practice at the heart of a nationwide investigation by federal and state regulators.
Longwood-based Empire Financial Holding Co. said an internal review found a number of instances in which certain employees of its brokerage subsidiary — Empire Financial Group Inc. — helped clients perform late trading of mutual fund shares, according to a recent company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Empire said it also found that some brokers were involved in market timing, a practice banned by most mutual funds because it benefits aggressive, short-term speculators at the expense of long-term investors and a fund’s share price.
The company noted in its filing that the SEC has subpoenaed information and documents from Empire Financial and four of its employees.
It is not known whether the brokers involved still work for the company, nor is it clear what action Empire Financial has taken to deal with the situation. Empire officials did not return repeated calls on Monday.
“As of this time, the company cannot determine the nature or severity of any legal or other regulatory sanctions that may be imposed on the company,” Empire stated in its SEC filing. The company “intends to continue to fully and completely cooperate with the SEC and any other regulatory body conducting an investigation.”
SEC officials said Empire is among the first securities firms to publicly acknowledge such activity. But more such filings are expected: More than 25 percent of the nation’s securities brokerages have told SEC investigators they helped clients execute late trades. And almost 70 percent of the firms have indicated they were aware of market-timing trades by some of their mutual-fund customers.
Just last week, the SEC and Massachusetts regulators accused five former Prudential Securities stock brokers of various offenses related to improper mutual-fund trading.
To date, however, most of the focus has been on mutual-fund companies, not securities firms. Putnam Investments and Strong Financial Corp., for example, already face allegations of allowing improper trades and have announced the resignations of top executives. Other major firms, including Janus, Bank One and Bank of America’s mutual-funds unit, have also been linked by regulators to trading schemes.
The casualty count continued rising Monday when Alliance Capital Management said it had dismissed two senior executives in charge of its mutual-fund unit because they had been implicated in the investigation of inappropriate market-timing transactions.
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer helped trigger the nationwide mutual-fund probe in early September when he announced allegations against Canary Capital, a New Jersey-based hedge fund that he accused of conducting illegal trades through a number of mutual funds and brokers. Canary Capital denied wrongdoing but paid $40 million to settle the allegations.
Shortly after Spitzer and the SEC went public with their investigations, Empire Financial acknowledged that Canary Capital had been among its clients and that SEC officials had questioned the firm about its trading activity. Company officials denied any wrongdoing then.
As more brokers and fund managers are implicated, the associations that represent them are also looking into the allegations. For example, ethics complaints have begun pouring into the Association for Investment Management and Research, a Virginia-based professional group.
If the association verifies the allegations, it will take disciplinary action, officials said.
“We are very distraught at what we’re hearing has been happening,” said Jonathan Boersma, a financial analyst and vice president of professional standards for the group.
“As an organization, we work hard to promote good ethics and ensure investor interest are paramount. Clearly, according to the allegations we’re hearing, too often this is not what has been happening in the mutual fund industry.”
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