Peter Kellogg Biography

Peter R. Kellogg born September 5, 1942, is an American businessman and philanthropist with a net worth estimated by Forbes at around $2.3 billion.

Personal

Peter attended Berkshire School in Sheffield, Massachusetts. He is the son of James Crane Kellogg, III of Wall Street specialist firm Spear, Leeds & Kellogg; he joined his father's firm in 1967 after working at Dominick & Dominick. His fortune is primarily from his successful leadership of Spear, Leeds & Kellogg in the 1980s through to its sale in 2000 to Goldman Sachs for a reported $6.5 billion. Kellogg attended Babson College, however later dropped out.

NYSE

The NASD had publicly announced on November 3, 2003 that it "filed a disciplinary action against Peter Kellogg alleging that he directed fraudulent wash trades and matched trades between four accounts he controlled". Wash sales are trades of securities without a real change in ownership of the securities traded. Matched orders are orders to buy or sell securities that are entered with knowledge that a matching order on the opposite side has been or will be entered.

The NASD subsequently announced on August 6, 2004 that an NASD panel convened to hear the case dismissed this complaint against Kellogg. The public notice stated that panel "found that there was no evidence that Kellogg carried out the four transactions at issue with the intention to defraud, manipulate or deceive.....that Kellogg conducted the transactions for legitimate business and tax purposes."

AMEX

Spear, Leeds was fined $1 million in 2002 by the Amex and ordered to conduct a review of the supervision of its clearance and specialist operations on the AMEX floor. This came in the wake of a violation of AMEX trading rules in the mid-1990s by a Spear Leeds employee who the AMEX found was not properly supervised by the firm. The employee, who was fined $100,000 and barred from the industry, was reported in the news media to have testified that his actions were known to senior Spear Leeds officials, including Kellogg.

Taxes

Kellogg is the controlling shareholder of IAT Reinsurance Co. which has received media attention in the past for its former use of a U.S. law exempting small insurance companies from paying federal tax. Congress exempted insurance companies from taxes if they collected less than $350,000 in annual premiums; IAT qualified for this exemption at one time.