Thomas Weisel Settles Probe of Analysts

Thomas Weisel Partners has reached a tentative agreement with federal securities regulators to pay $12.5 million to settle investigations into whether its stock analysts gave tainted advice to investors, a company spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.

The San Francisco-based investment firm will pay a $10-million fine and contribute $2.5 million to the distribution of independent research to investors, the spokeswoman said.

Weisel is the last of a dozen Wall Street firms to agree in principle to pay fines to resolve probes into whether analysts talked up stocks to win investment banking business.