Credit Suisse Securities has agreed to buy back $17.2 million of auction-rate securities from Colorado investors who struggled to sell them after the market for them froze.
Colorado regulators said the agreement announced Tuesday is part of a multistate settlement in which Credit Suisse agreed to buy back or resolve more than $550 million of auction-rate securities from customers. It settles claims by regulators who alleged customers weren’t always told the risks of those investments, whose interest rates are reset at regular auctions, sometimes as often as weekly.
Regulators allege many firms marketed them as safe, cashlike investments, but when the market froze in 2008, investors found they couldn’t readily be sold for cash. The Associated Press
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to a source error, the Colorado Department of
Regulatory Agencies reported erroneously how much the company was
buying back. Credit Suisse Securities agreed to buy back up to
$17.2 million from Colorado individual investors, charities, and
small and medium-sized businesses, not $79.4 million. The story
also misstated how much auction rate securities the company has
bought back from retail investors or agreed to resolve as part of a
multistate agreement. That number should be $550 million, not $3.5
billion.
