Ex-Putnam CEO to Get $78 Million

Former Putnam Investments Chief Executive Lawrence Lasser will get $78 million to settle a dispute over his departure from the firm in the wake of the mutual fund scandal, parent company Marsh & McLennan Cos. said in a regulatory filing Thursday.

The settlement won’t have a “significant impact” on Putnam’s second-quarter results, the company said.

Lasser, 61, left Boston-based Putnam in November after the firm was sued by Massachusetts and the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly allowing improper trading by its own fund managers. In January, Lasser entered into arbitration against Marsh & McLennan seeking payments due under a 1997 employment agreement that was amended in 2000.

The 34-year company veteran was the highest-paid officer at Marsh & McLennan, earning $163 million from 1996 to 2002, according to previous SEC filings. That was about five times more than his boss, Marsh & McLennan CEO Jeffrey Greenberg, earned during the same period. Under Lasser’s employment agreements, he was owed at least another $30 million depending on the circumstances of his departure.

Putnam settled alleged improper trading lawsuits in April by agreeing to pay $110 million and tighten rules over employee trading. In the previous six months, customers pulled more than $60 billion from the mutual fund firm, greater than the firm’s total net sales from 1998 to 2000.