Two press releases have hit the wires relating to class action lawsuits against the venerable U.S. financial service provider Charles Scwhab (NASDAQ: SCHW, Bullboard), one on April 10 and one on April 11. Both releases invite investors who have suffered heavy losses on Schwab’s YieldPlus products to consider joining the suit against the company. Law firms Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. and The Law Office of David R. Chase, P.A., are leading the charge on behalf of investors.
The April 10 release, from Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A., identifies two Schwab products that it believes are at the core of the problem. One is the Schwab YieldPlus Fund Investor Shares (SWYPX), and the other is the Schwab YieldPlus Fund - Select Shares (SWYSX). The question is whether or not Schwab misrepresented the safety of these investments before selling them to the retail investing public, and the answer, contend the lawyers, is no. Here is a paragraph from the April 10 press release:
Charles Schwab represented that its YieldPlus mutual funds were "a safe alternative to money market funds that preserve principal while being designed with your income needs in mind." Charles Schwab also represented that its YieldPlus funds were designed to provide "high current income with minimal changes in share price," and that this objective would be accomplished by investing in a "well-diversified" portfolio of bonds with durations of one year or less. Millions of investors bought the YieldPlus funds in reliance on those representations, making the Schwab YieldPlus funds among the top selling mutual funds in 2006. In fact, Charles Schwab's representations are belied by recent events.
After reading the above, it might be worth taking a look at the charts for SWYSX and SWYPX. They aren’t pretty. Units of SWYPX, for example, were valued at close to US$9.70 for over a year, started dropping in July of 2007, and in March of this year began a near-vertical descent to current levels of near US$6.80 – a decline of near 30%. So much for “a safe alternative to money market funds.” And some think junior mining stocks are risky…
Again, from the Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. of April 10:
Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. believes that those dramatic losses were directly caused by Charles Schwab's mismanagement of the funds. Specifically, the funds apparently were over-concentrated in risky mortgage-backed securities that contained subprime loans. The Funds also invested heavily in collateralized debt obligations, which are risky structured financial instruments. Many of those investments have no active secondary market, making the securities illiquid with difficult-to-determine values. Further still, many of the bonds had durations of more than two years, contrary to Charles Schwab's representations.
For this brief report I’ve drawn attention to two news releases from two law firms, and quoted from one. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, for the whole thing started some time ago. Who else is in on the (class) action?
April 9: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Charles Schwab Concerning YieldPlus Funds
April 7: Jonathan W. Evans Is Preparing Arbitration Claims to Be Filed Against Charles Schwab for Its YieldPlus Bond Funds Debacle (They called it a debacle.)
April 4: Stull, Stull & Brody Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Charles Schwab on Behalf of Purchasers of Schwab YieldPlus Funds
Think Schwab has had enough? How about these:
April 1: The Law Firm of Dyer & Berens LLP Files Shareholder Lawsuit On behalf of Schwab YieldPlus Fund Investors -- SCHW
March 25: Schatz Nobel Izard P.C. Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Charles Schwab YieldPlus Funds
And more where those came from. This isn’t going away any time soon.