Shareholder Spotlight : The Dark Side of T. Rowe Price – Greed, Betrayal, and a Questionable Partnership

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In the shadowy backstreets of high finance, where the line between right and wrong is as thin as a fag-end stubbed out on a bar floor, T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. has been playing a filthy game. This isn’t some wee little investment outfit your nan might trust with her pension; this is a tale of alleged betrayal, naked greed, and a partnership that stinks worse than a week-old fish supper. Let’s dig deeper.

The 401(k) Fiasco

Picture this: you’re a knackered employee at T. Rowe Price, slogging away, trusting the bastards to look after your retirement nest egg. But instead of having your back, they’re picking your pocket, shoving high-fee funds down your throat that drain your savings like a cheap pint down a drunk’s gullet. That’s the rotten core of a lawsuit they settled for $7 million in 2022. The charge? They peddled their own overpriced funds when cheaper options were sitting right there, begging to be used. It’s not just a cock-up; it’s a full-on scandal that lays bare a conflict of interest you could spot from space. Oh, and they’d already coughed up $6.6 million in 2019 to hush up earlier gripes. Makes you wonder if these finance tossers even know what “integrity” means.

Fee Frenzy

But hold on, there’s more shit in this stew. Back in 2016, investors hauled them over the coals, claiming their fees were so bloody outrageous they’d make a loan shark blush. We’re talking $388 million in alleged overcharges, with the Blue Chip Growth Fund as the gleaming turd on top. As the fund swelled up like a bloated corpse, the fees barely twitched, leaving T. Rowe Price laughing all the way to the bank while shareholders got shafted. Did they settle? Did they fight? Who the hell knows – the trail’s gone cold. But the stench lingers: trust, once fucked, doesn’t come back easy.

Proxy Voting Blunder

Then there’s the time they royally screwed the pooch on a proxy vote for Dell’s buyout – a $194 million balls-up they chalked up to a “computer glitch.” Yeah, right. Because million-pound systems don’t need a human eye, do they? It’s the kind of half-arsed incompetence that’d get you sacked from a corner shop, let alone a finance giant. Another dent in a reputation that’s starting to look more battered than a chippy’s frying basket.

The Cummins Connection

Now, let’s get to the real kicker: their cosy little tie-up with Cummins Inc. T. Rowe Price holds around 5,810,400 shares in this lot (number available at time of publishing) – a company that shelled out $1.675 billion in 2023 to settle claims they’d been cheating emissions tests like a dodgy mechanic rigging an MOT. Cummins, the diesel engine kings, got caught with their trousers down, flouting environmental rules like they were optional. It’s the sort of corporate wankery that should have any decent investor running for the hills. But T. Rowe Price? They’re still clinging on, not just for the cash, but because it seems they’ve found a kindred spirit – a partner in the fine art of saying “fuck ethics” when there’s profit on the table. It’s a match made in hell, built on a shared knack for cutting corners and dodging the rules.

The Reckoning

So here we are, at the end of this grim little road trip through T. Rowe Price’s underbelly. It’s a cautionary yarn about what happens when greed gets its claws in deep and doesn’t let go. The little guy – the employee, the investor, the planet – gets screwed every time. Next time you’re thinking of chucking your hard-earned cash their way, ask yourself: do you really want to back a firm that’s lost its moral bloody compass? Because that, my friends, is a right load of bollocks.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

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