Putnam Begins Payouts for Market-Timing Settlement

Putnam Investment Management, LLC, will pay the first distribution of $40 million to compensate its mutual fund investors affected by undisclosed market timing and excessive short-term trading.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the payment is the first in a series of Fair Fund distributions totaling more than $150 million to more than 1.5 million Putnam mutual fund investors. The first payment will reach 600,000 investors.

When the market-time scandal was unveiled in 2003, the SEC and the Massachusetts Securities Division brought separate administrative proceedings against Putnam (see Market Timing Leads to “Late” Departure of Putnam Fund Managers). As part of an April 2004 settlement, Putnam agreed to pay disgorgement and financial penalties and to implement certain compliance measures, mutual fund governance steps, and employee trading reforms. The Fair Fund distribution is composed of money that Putnam paid to settle both the SEC and Massachusetts actions, according to the SEC.

Never miss a story — sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters to keep up on the latest retirement plan adviser news.

More information Fair Fund distribution and the Putnam settlement is available at www.putnam.com/individual/fair_fund/.

SEC’s IDEA To Replace EDGAR Database

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ushers its financial reporting capabilities into a new era with the successor to the EDGAR database.

The new system is called IDEA, short for Interactive Data Electronic Applications. The SEC said in a release that it will give investors faster and easier access to financial information about public companies and mutual funds.

Built on completely new architecture, the new system will at first supplement and then eventually replace the 1980s-based EDGAR system, according to the SEC. With IDEA, the tedious task of sifting through forms one at a time will be eliminated, and investors will be able to immediately congregate information from thousands of companies and forms.

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANADVISERdash daily newsletter.

The SEC said it is ready for “the new world of financial disclosure’ interactive data will present. The agency has formally proposed requiring U.S. companies to provide financial information using interactive data beginning as early as next year, and separately has proposed requiring mutual funds to submit their public filings using interactive data.


«