Defunct hedge fund fined $716,000

Toppled hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC, has been censured by the Securities and Exchange Commission and has agreed to pay $716,000 to settle charges of violating securities rules, the SEC said. The SEC said that Amaranth broke the rules by improperly covering its short positions in stocks of several companies involved in offerings. Amaranth will pay a $150,000 civil fine and $566,819 in restitution and interest. Nicholas M. Maounis, Amaranth's chief executive, noted in a letter to investors yesterday that the settlement was unrelated to Amaranth's failed natural gas investment that precipitated its collapse in September, according to an Associated Press report. The letter added that fund investors will not bear any of the cost of Amaranth's payments under the agreement with the SEC. The hedge fund, formerly of Greenwich, Conn., neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing. The stocks involved in the case were Coeur D'Alene Mines Corp. of Idaho; the Catapult Communications Corp. of Mountain View, Calif.; the Cleco Corp. of Pineville, La.; MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. of St. Peters, Mo. and the American Superconductor Corp. of Westborough, Mass.