Prudential Bache Securities Inc

Investors didn't know it, but Prudential-Bache's Energy Income Funds partnerships paid for Pru-Bache executive James J. Darr's 10-day vacation to London in 1988. Darr, his wife and daughter ran up $34,000 in expenses on that trip--including $15,000 in round-trip airfare on the Concorde, $11,500 for two luxury suites at the Berkeley Hotel and charges for a chauffeured car that sometimes exceeded $1,500 per day.

In January, 1986, Prudential-Bache Securities was launching one of the most aggressive sales campaigns in the history of Wall Street. Even as world oil prices were collapsing, Pru-Bache was putting heavy pressure on its brokers to sell oil and gas interests to small investors, especially the elderly and retirees. The firm fired up its salespeople with promises of lavish European vacations, bonuses and commissions far higher than they got for selling municipal bonds or stocks.

Prudential-Bache Sued for Fraud: A Los Angeles Superior Court suit filed Wednesday accuses Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. of negligence and fraud. Mary C. Trinnaman, an investor who filed the case, claims that the brokerage persuaded her to liquidate her portfolio and reinvest all her capital in VMS Mortgage Investment Fund.

Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. lost $164 million in 1987, more than previously estimated. Prudential Insurance Co. of America, the securities firm's parent, said Monday that its own profit from operations, before dividends and federal income tax, rose to $2.65 billion from $2.55 billion. Prudential did not announce a net income figure.

Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. salvaged a deal Monday that had fallen through last week by agreeing to acquire the branch offices and customer accounts of brokerage firm Thomson McKinnon Inc. for about $60 million. Prudential-Bache, subsidiary of Prudential Insurance Co. of America, announced Friday that it was terminating its agreement to buy all of Thomson McKinnon because of balance sheet problems.

As the Wall Street brokerage Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. struggles to overcome enormous losses, its longtime chairman and chief executive, George L. Ball, said Wednesday that he has resigned. Prudential Insurance Co., which owns Prudential-Bache, said the parent company's chairman emeritus, Robert A. Beck, 65, was named acting chief executive of the brokerage. A spokesman for Prudential Insurance said Beck will serve while a search is made for a permanent successor to Ball, 52.

Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. plans to lay off up to two-thirds of its investment banking professionals, sources said Tuesday, as the chairman of the Wall Street firm declared that "business stinks." The cuts at the investment bank that touts itself in ads as "rock solid, market wise" are the latest in the securities industry's devastating recession. Altogether, the industry has lost more than 45,000 jobs since 1987. Meanwhile, the owners of struggling CS First Boston Inc.

Two brokerage houses accused of joining in a conspiracy to corner the silver market in 1979 and 1980 have paid Minpeco SA, Peru's leading minerals company, a total of $34 million in an out-of-court settlement, Minpeco said Wednesday. The two brokerages--Merrill Lynch & Co. and Prudential-Bache Securities Inc.--were among several defendants in a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit.

As the Wall Street brokerage Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. struggles to overcome enormous losses, its longtime chairman and chief executive, George L. Ball, said Wednesday that he has resigned. Prudential Insurance Co., which owns Prudential-Bache, said the parent company's chairman emeritus, Robert A. Beck, 65, was named acting chief executive of the brokerage. A spokesman for Prudential Insurance said Beck will serve while a search is made for a permanent successor to Ball, 52.

Prudential-Bache Sued for Fraud: A Los Angeles Superior Court suit filed Wednesday accuses Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. of negligence and fraud. Mary C. Trinnaman, an investor who filed the case, claims that the brokerage persuaded her to liquidate her portfolio and reinvest all her capital in VMS Mortgage Investment Fund.

A federal jury in Los Angeles on Wednesday took just over an hour to decide that an Anaheim stockbroker and a Torrance printer engaged in securities fraud when they traded stocks based on information culled from advance copies of Business Week magazine. In the civil trial--the first stemming from a series of nationwide insider trading cases involving the magazine's "Inside Wall Street" column--the eight-person jury found that stockbroker Brian J. Callahan conspired with printer William N.