Friday, October 31, 2008

Evergreen Investments Turn Brown

"Evergreen Investments faces federal, state probe

Wachovia Corp.'s Evergreen Investments unit is being investigated by federal and state regulators over investor losses on one of its short-term bond mutual funds. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Massachusetts have launched separate investigations over "alleged issues" related to the drop in the value of Evergreen Ultra Short Opportunities fund, the bank said. Wachovia shuttered the fund and guaranteed investors would suffer no additional losses after an 18 percent decline in early June. Three class-action lawsuits allege that Evergreen made misleading statements about the fund's risks and failed to accurately price its holdings, "at different points in time," according to the filing with the SEC. An Evergreen spokeswoman in Boston declined to comment (Bloomberg)."