The Securities and Exchange Commission charged that a former hedge fund manager realized about $14 million from an insider trading tip about pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca’s $15.6 billion 2007 takeover of MedImmune.

However, Stephen Goldfield, 46, was able to settle the case for $600,000, apparently because he immediately lost his millions and is now unemployed, trading on his own account.

Goldfield and his fellow Wharton business school classmate James Self, 45, settled the case with the SEC Wednesday, without admitting or denying the regulator’s allegations.

Self, who heads up Merck & Co.’s vaccine business development division, paid a $50,000 penalty.

In its civil complaint, the SEC painted a picture of a business school chum who couldn’t resist showing off to his friend.

It also portrays a hedge fund manager so inept, he lost all the money he made off insider tips.

After they were in school together at Wharton in the mid-1990s, Goldfield and Self kept up a close friendship, even though Goldfield lived in Florida, where he ran his hedge fund firm, Imperium Capital Management, and Self stayed in Pennsylvania, where he ended up working for Merck.

But when Goldfield visited his father in Pennsylvania in early 2007, he usually found time to spend with Self.

At the same time, Self was part of a Merck team that was evaluating MedImmune for a possible acquisition. He leaked the Merck confidential deal sheet to Goldfield and kept him updated on the MedImmune sale progress, the SEC claimed.

Self’s motivation, according to the SEC complaint, was “to boost his reputation in Goldfield’s eyes and to show Goldfield that he was working on important matters.”

In early April, Self told Goldfield, in a phone conversation that the “weather was in the 50s,” which the SEC took to be code for Merck’s bid price for MedImmune.

Goldfield eventually realized almost $14 million on his trades in MedImmune.

AstraZeneca bought MedImmune on April 23, 2007.

By May 31, 2007, Goldfield lost all of the profits he made on MedImmune by aggressively trading index put options, the SEC said.

Goldfield’s firm was already in trouble with the SEC prior to the MedImmune case. Imperium settled illegal short selling claims for about $82,000 in March 2007.

A Merck spokesman confirmed that Self was still working for the company, but said Merck would only say that it was aware of the SEC matter.

Merck did not immediately return a call seeking comment. A message left for Goldfield was not immediately returned.

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