Handojo settles insider trading charges in U.S.

WASHINGTON (Bloomberg): A former J.P. Morgan & Co visiting analyst agreed to surrender US$588,766 to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that he traded on inside information about NationsBank Corp's acquisition of Barnett Banks Inc and other bank mergers.

Roy Handojo, an Indonesian who was working in New York as an analyst trainee, is serving a 15-month prison sentence after pleading guilty last November to similar criminal charges.

The allegations by both the SEC and federal prosecutors involve four banking company mergers in which J.P. Morgan was involved as an adviser.

The SEC, in a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York last September, alleged Handojo used inside information to buy securities of Signet Banking Corp, ACC Consumer Financial Corp, Barnett Banks Inc and Great Financial Corp. Handojo, then 25, bought the securities days before the companies announced merger agreements between July and September 1997, the suit contended.

Handojo neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in settling the SEC case, and his attorney could not be reached for comment. He initially denied the allegations, telling investigators that he traded on published rumors, and noticed price and volume increases in the bank stocks he purchased. Handojo made $665,000, including interest, on the trades, but the SEC said it lowered the amount it required him to surrender because of his inability to pay.

J.P. Morgan was an adviser on the transactions between Signet and First Union Corp, ACC and Household International Inc, and Barnett and NationsBank. The brokerage also advised an unnamed company that unsuccessfully competed with Star Banc Corp to acquire Great Financial, the SEC alleged.