By Patrick Markey
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Hundreds of Colombian clients of a Stanford Group unit voted on Wednesday to transfer their investments to other brokerages just a week after U.S. authorities charged the founder of the vast financial network with an $8 billion fraud.
Clutching folders and agendas, college professors, lawyers and pensioners packed into a hall where financial sector representatives explained options for cash invested by the local brokerage unit of the Stanford Group.
The unit is Stanford S.A. Comisionista de Bolsa.
Colombian clients transferred around $30 million from Stanford in the initial days after U.S. authorities charged Texas billionaire Allen Stanford with carrying out a "massive fraud" that rattled investors from Latin America to Europe.
More than 500 clients voted on Wednesday in a ballot to move investments from the Stanford unit, which held another roughly $30 million in three investment funds. After Stanford's funds were frozen, participants had to vote as a group.
"We're calmer now," said Jose Porto, a retired book editor after voting at the Bogota university hall. "It's only half resolved really, let's wait to see what happens with the transfer of the funds."
In Colombia, Stanford ran a brokerage managing in local peso assets and a separate Stanford Trust office, which acted only as a legal representative of the group's international operations.
Neighboring Venezuela has been hit worse. The government took control of Stanford Bank Venezuela after estimating Venezuelans may have invested around $3 billion in Stanford. Ecuador has also seized two local units.
Peru's securities authority suspended a Stanford associate from trading and Mexico has started its own probe at a Stanford bank unit for irregularities.
But Colombian authorities said they believed the local brokerage's finances would allow it to meet its commitments.
"We're not sure what has happened, but obviously we are worried because it seemed like such a solid thing," said Mercedes Diaz, a college professor lining up outside the hall before the vote. "It was a good opportunity to invest."
Stanford, a financier and sports enthusiast with a knighthood from Antigua and Barbuda, has surrendered his passport. But no criminal charges have been filed.
The fraud charges center around funds run by his Antiguan affiliate Stanford International Bank. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges he fraudulently sold certificates of deposit with high interest rates to investors.
(Reporting by Patrick Markey; Editing by Bernard Orr)
