The widening investigation into mutual-fund trading agreements that hurt small investors has hit Westport.
The Denver-based Janus Capital Group said Janus International chief executive Richard Garland, 42, resigned on Monday. While not widely known to many Westporters, Janus International is headquartered on Westports Riverside Avenue.
Janus offered no formal explanation of why Garland left, in a statement equally lacking in praise for a hard-charging executive who built up $5.9 billion in overseas assets for the group, according to the Denver Post.
“Both Janus and Mr. Garland came to the view that it would be best if he left the company,” Janus spokesman Blair Johnson said. “We have accepted his resignation.”
Garland was at the center of a market-timing scandal that enveloped Janus and three other mutual-fund groups in early September.
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer alleged that Janus had allowed a New Jersey hedge fund, Canary Capital, to make short-term trades in the Janus High Yield and Mercury funds.
Market timers like Canary were allowed to trade quickly in and out of mutual funds, skimming returns that might have otherwise gone to long-term investors and adding costs.
More than 40 mutual-fund industry executives have either been fired, forced to resign or suspended because of their involvement in late trading or market timing, according to Bloomberg News.
