Business Notes INSIDER TRADING

During the first 13 months of Wall Street's insider-trading scandal, most of the culprits nabbed were individuals. But last week Kidder, Peabody, the 14th largest U.S. brokerage, became the first major institution to be penalized. Without admitting guilt, Kidder agreed to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission a $25 million settlement -- second only to the $100 million that Arbitrager Ivan Boesky paid.

Boesky had fingered Martin Siegel, a former Kidder merger specialist who supplied the arbitrager with tips on takeovers. After Siegel pleaded guilty to criminal charges, authorities alleged that Kidder should have known what Siegel was doing. General Electric, which owns 80% of Kidder, struck the SEC deal to avoid prosecution -- and to put the scandal in the past. Even as the settlement was announced, GE pumped $100 million in capital into the brokerage.