Investment Consultant to Pay $150,000 Fine

Dunham & Associates Investment Counsel Inc., a San Diego-based investment advisor, agreed to a fine after putting more than $350 million in client money into unregistered investment funds, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday.

The firm will pay $150,000 and hire a consultant to review and correct its procedures, the agency said in a statement. Chief Executive Jeffrey A. Dunham also agreed to a $50,000 fine, the SEC said. Neither Dunham nor the company admitted or denied wrongdoing.

The investment firm sought to avoid federal securities laws between 1999 and 2004 by pooling money from almost 1,700 clients in a common trust fund, which in turn invested in 13 unregistered investment funds, the SEC said. The investment vehicles provided too little information to investors, regulators said.

“Federal securities laws are based on a simple concept, that all investors should have access to certain basic information about an investment before buying it,” Randall Lee, the SEC’s regional director in Los Angeles, said in the statement. “Dunham and his companies violated the law by depriving their investors of precisely that information.”

Kenneth Polin, an attorney for Jeffrey Dunham and the company, said the firm registered its mutual funds in December 2004. He declined to comment directly on the settlement.