Published: Wednesday July 8, 2009 MYT 9:05:00 AM
S'pore bans 10 brokers from structured notes sales
SINGAPORE: Singapore's central bank banned 10 financial institutions from selling structured notes for improperly marketing US$655 million of the bonds that were linked to U.S. brokerage Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
The banks and brokerages can't sell structured notes for between six months and two years, the central bank, known as the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said in a statement late Tuesday.
The bank said some of the financial institutions assigned risk ratings that were inconsistent with warnings stated in the notes' prospectus, and salespeople were ill-trained to sell the notes.
The structured notes were linked to the risk of a bankruptcy occurring to one of the reference entities, such as Lehman.
The Lehman collapse last fall led to a default on the dividend payment of some of the bonds, most of which had a maturity of 5 to 7 years and a yield of about 5 percent.
About 10,000 investors bought the notes, and financial institutions have compensated about 4,000 of them, the bank said.
Similar structured notes were sold in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indonesia.
The 10 financial institutions banned by the central bank are DBS Group, UOB Kay Hian, OCBC Securities, ABN AMRO's Singapore branch, Maybank Singapore, CIMB-GK Securities, Hong Leong Finance, DMG & Partners, Phillip Securities and Kim Eng Securities. - AP
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