Oxford Loss Widens in Quarter

JB Oxford Holdings Inc., the Beverly Hills-based brokerage under investigation for its role in the mutual fund trading scandal, said Monday that its first-quarter loss soared from a year earlier.

JB Oxford lost $2.2 million, or $1.23 a share, compared with $681,000, or 45 cents, last year. It was the 13th straight quarterly loss for the company, which did not return calls seeking comment.

Legal fees stemming from regulatory probes exacerbated JB Oxford’s net loss, filings showed. The fees rose to $1.3 million from $600,000 a year earlier.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. attorney’s office and the New York attorney general’s office are investigating the link between JB Oxford’s trade-processing subsidiary and a hedge fund.

The unit was mentioned -- but not named as a defendant -- in New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer’s Sept. 3 complaint against the Canary Capital Partners hedge fund, which touched off the mutual fund industry trading scandal.

The complaint said JB Oxford helped Canary make illegal, after-the-bell fund trades at that day’s “stale” prices, rather than the next day’s prices.

In its quarterly filing Monday, JB Oxford reiterated that it hoped to resolve the probes and that it would “vigorously defend itself” if charges were brought.

Before the earnings were released, JB Oxford shares slid 24 cents to close at a 52-week low of $2.36 on Nasdaq.