SEC eyes bond insurers in subprime probes -official

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. securities regulators are looking at bond insurers along with other financial companies in some three dozen investigations related to the subprime meltdown, a top enforcer said on Wednesday.

"The monolines are the focus of our investigation as well," said Cheryl Scarboro, an associate director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division. "They are one of the players in the securitization area."

She declined to identify which companies were a target of the probes.

MBIA Inc, the world's largest bond insurer, has said it is cooperating with informal inquiries by the SEC and New York State insurance department into disclosures by the company related to mortgage and other debt exposure.

The SEC is also investigating banks and credit rating agencies and the number of investigations could increase, said Scarboro.

In its various probes, the agency is looking at issues such as securitization, valuations and accounting, with the focus being "on the more egregious conduct, in particular fraud," Scarboro said at a Practicing Law Institute's conference on the subprime credit crisis.

But the agency, which has more than 100 people working on these probes, does not expect to file any public actions in the short term, she said.

"These cases are complex," Scarboro said. "We have devoted a lot of resources to this."

The investor protection agency has not identified any targets of the investigations. Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch are among the financial services companies that have disclosed that government investigators are seeking information about their subprime activities.

(Reporting by Paritosh Bansal; Editing by Tom Hals)