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Hightower Securities expects to be able to make a "material revision" to the $1.2 million it warned in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it is on the hook for and must be repaid to clients as a result of charges related to the sale of 529 college savings plans, a company spokeswoman said Monday.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced a 529 Plan Share Class Initiative early last year in which it recommended firms promptly remedy potential supervisory and suitability violations relating to advisors executing trades on behalf of their customers of 529 plans that are inconsistent with the accounts' investment objectives, and to return money to harmed investors as quickly and efficiently as possible, Hightower pointed out in the filing.
"Upon notification, the Company has been working with FINRA to remediate the matter, including calculation of the remediation amount," Hightower said in the SEC filing, adding it has "accrued a $1.2 million liability for the estimated remediation payments that will be made to investors impacted."
However, the Hightower spokeswoman said Monday: "When Hightower followed FINRA's initial guidance regarding this industry-wide self-reporting initiative, and reviewed fees related to 529 share classes, we recognized that to accurately assess client account impacts, we needed to obtain almost a decade's worth of transactional data held at multiple fund record keepers to accurately assess client impacts."
