Wachovia Securities and Wachovia Capital Markets would buy back or provide liquidity for up to $9 billion of auction rate securities and would pay $50 million in fines to Missouri and other states that investigated the firms ARS sales practices, under a preliminary settlement reached with federal and state regulators.
Under the agreement, the firms would buy back about $5.7 billion of ARS held by 40,000 retail customers individual investors, charities and small businesses. The firm also agreed to stipulations that were laid out in previous federal and state settlement agreements with Citigroup Global Markets and UBS AG.
