In Brief: Settlement Cuts Out David Bowie Claimant

A dispute over who thought up the idea of securitizing rock star David Bowie's royalties has apparently been derailed.

David Van Dam, an investment banker at KeyCorp, lost his hope of collecting money from Fahnestock & Co. when the brokerage firm settled a lawsuit with a southern California subprime auto lender.

Mr. Van Dam claimed that he originated the idea of the Bowie bonds while employed at Gruntal & Co. with current Fahnestock managing director David Pullman.

Those securities were sold, with much fanfare, by Mr. Pullman after he fired Mr. Van Dam and left Gruntal for Fahnestock.

Mr. Van Dam tried to become a party to Fahnestock's suit against SeaWest Financial Corp., in which it claimed it was not paid for placing the lender's debt. Mr. Van Dam hoped to collect a portion of damages awarded to Fahnestock in the SeaWest case.

A settlement of the suit was announced Monday, apparently leaving Mr. Van Dam out in the cold. Terms were not released. Mr. Van Dam could not be reached.

"It looks like we won," said Mr. Pullman. "It's a total and unequivocal victory."

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