Fund Scandal Widens, Putnam CEO Is Ousted

[joeunderdog]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A probe of the mutual fund industry picked up speed on Monday as the head of one of the nation's most venerable fund companies resigned under pressure and securities regulators found more firms may have engaged in improper trading.

U.S. regulators also accused nearly 450 brokerage firms of overcharging investors for mutual fund purchases and said tens of million of dollars of refunds may be necessary.

snip

Lasser, 60, was known as a hard-driving CEO who transformed Putnam from a sleepy company into a high-flying firm that built a reputation with big bets on growth stocks.


He was also known as one of the best-paid executives in the mutual fund industry. He earned more than $130 million in the past five years, even though Putnam delivered subpar results and investors pulled more money away from it than any other fund company.

more...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20031103/bs_nm/financial_fund_probe_dc

A little early retirement never hurt anyone. Time to move to Florida and set up a tee time with Ken.

[Onward]

1. Gee

Does it ever bother the working people, whether left, right or middle, Dem or Dittohead, that these rich types never go to jail. I mean, to a *real* jail?

[htuttle]

2. Except in Russia...

...and then our State department whines about them being 'unfair'.

Yes, we've noticed.

[camero]

3. This is what happens when you have no leadership

People just think they can do whatever they please. IN the Bush era, it seems, they can.

[Insider]

4. guess he didn't ante up

every time i see one of these, i check opensecrets.org. they just don't seem to throw the book at big bush donors. go figure.

[david_vincent]

5. The lack of ethics in the business world

has been a huge and growing problem for many years now, ever since young greedheads started elevating the likes of Anthony Robbins to the stature of a Socrates.
When these guys started taking themselves seriously with all of this oh-so-profound "leadership" babble, the writing was on the wall for traditional, conservative, responsible business practices.
Real business is boring. It's stodgy, sensible, and safe. Get-rich-quick jerks with no patience and an inflated sense of their own importance have polluted the good name of decent businessmen everywhere.

[htuttle]

6. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed that

Seemed to really go downhill in the 'Greed is Good' 1980's.

I think some of the trend had to do with 'new ideas' coming out of the University in Chicago business school at the time, IIRC (and I'm real foggy on this).

However, I think the 'new ideas' were actually very old ideas. A barbarian 'raiding-based' economy is an idea that goes back thousands of years.