| 03 August 2009

We recently wrote about Charles Schwab (SCHW) fighting back against NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in the auction-rate securities debacle. What made the story interesting was that it appeared they were the lone holdout in an otherwise quick-to-settle environment. Citgroup (C), Wachovia, Bank of America (BAC), RBC Capital Markets, Deutsche Bank an TD Ameritrade (AMTD) all settled quickly.

But a little kick-in-the-pants article by Gretchen Morgenson over at the NY Times points out that Raymond James (RJF) is also holding out.

According to the article, Raymond James clients currently hold $800 billion of the ARS assets, which are illiquid. Representatives at RJ, like Schwab, claim innocence because they didn't underwrite the offerings. But TD Ameritrade and others were quick to agree that selling the securities was bad enough.

Ms. Morgenson doesn't pull any punches in her article. She wonders how the firm can pay its co-founder nearly $10 million and then pay out another $6.3 million for naming rights to the Tampa Bay Buccaneer's stadium -- this year alone -- rather than give some of its customers their money back.

Some claim the ARS mess is Wall Street's greatest fraud. Cheers to the NY Time for helping shed some light in an otherwise dark hole.