Wells Fargo Investments will buy back $34.6 million worth of auction-rate securities from investors under a consent order with the Colorado Division of Securities, state securities commissioner Fred Joseph announced last week.
The order applies to investors who purchased auction-rate securities through Wells Fargo Investments and found themselves unable to sell their securities after February 2008 when the market for the debt collapsed.
States received complaints from a wide range of investors who suffered significant financial damage because the money they were told was liquid was tied up in the frozen ARS market.
Last week’s consent order was the 11th that the securities commissioner has completed with various institutions, including Deutsche Bank Securities, Citigroup, Bank of America, Credit Suisse Securities, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, RBC Capital Markets, Wachovia Securities, TD Ameritrade, UBS Securities LLC and UBS Financial Services Inc.
State regulators, including Colorado, are continuing their investigations into possible misconduct by other firms, and have reached agreements to settle with some of them, Joseph said.
