from Reuters Investigates:
Morbid money-spinners
If the life settlements market seems ghoulish, here’s a British scandal which isn’t doing the image of the business any favours. It’s one of the worst the country’s seen.
Around 30,000 mainly elderly investors in the UK put their money into a company called Keydata, hoping to make a little extra cash to fund their own retirement with the promise of a healthy return.
What they were buying sounded kosher, even if it did depend on how fast their wealthy American counterparts were dying. Of course, the investors may not have known that.
As is so often the case with these things, the projections were a little optimistic. And then some other irregularities blew up. Around 100 million pounds went missing, one of the business’s partners dropped dead in Singapore and the investment company was shut down by the regulators, leaving British pensioners like Tony and Pam Tobin out of pocket. The Serious Fraud Office is investigating.
Tony and Pam Tobin
Undeterred, the other key character behind Keydata is determined to fight the regulators’ decision. "I am someone who can make the impossible possible," he tells us.
Reuters Funds Summit: Madoff, the silent presence
Master-fraudster Bernie Madoff is the invisible guest at an annual fund fest in Luxembourg, the European capital for fund administration.
Even though the former Nasdaq chairman is under arrest thousands of miles away from this discreet financial centre nestled between Belgium, France and Germany, his presence was omnipresent. Fund managers just can’t stop mentioning him.
One example: “The hedge fund bubble has popped. The market bubble has popped, and to put a cherry on the top you had the Madoff probe in December,” said Ken Kinsley-Quick from hedge fund Thames River Capital.
Other speakers have gone into deep soul-searching, accepting that more transparency and due diligence is needed. But few would openly beat their chest and admit any wrongdoing as they all seemed to agree that if the Securities and Exchange Commission could not catch Madoff’s wrong doing over 20 years, no-one could.
“Except for a few whistle blowers no-one had expected anything. I really do not think that custodians did not take their role seriously. But it’s not helping the industry,” Yves Francis, a partner from Deloitte said.
Even Luxembourg’s budget minister, Luc Frieden, got into the act, suggesting that a deal should be made out of court to compensate Madoff investors who had gone through Luxembourg-based investment vehicles.
He clearly wanted Madoff to just go away.
from DealZone:
Allen Stanford: Tales from Mexia
Trying to report the comprehensive story of Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused of perpetrating an $8 billion fraud, is like trying to reassemble 100 documents after they've been through the shredder.
Stanford's business and sports interests and the subsequent investigations into them stretch across the ocean, through numerous government agencies and courts and into the lives of people in places big and small.
As usual, there was too much to fit into any one story.
Last week I flew from New York to Houston and drove about three hours north to Mexia, Texas the small town where Stanford grew up. I wrote about Mexia here, and about Stanford's complicated personal ties -- apparently he charmed women as well as investors and has left an angry trail of both, including an estranged wife, several girlfriends and six children with four women.
Here are some thoughts and notes from Mexia. First tip: if you pronounce the town's name correctly (Muh-HAY-uh) you win points with the townspeople.
Stanford and Goswick
Stanford's board included Chairman Emeritus James Stanford, Allen Stanford's father, who is 81 years old, and gets around with a walker. His office is a little white rancher on the side of the main road heading into town from the interstate. There's a tiny hole in one of the windows that James's wife and Allen's stepmother Billie said came from a BB or pellet gun. No, it's due to disgruntled investors, she said. It was more likely poor neighborhood kids playing with guns again.
Anna Nicole actually only lived in Mexia for 2, maybe 3 years. It is often reported “she was from Mexia” when actually she grew up in Houston, just lived in Mexia during her high school years. By the way, that is the best fried chicken place in the world. It doesn’t get any better.
Dicky Flatt that you mention in the article is the finest Christian man you could ever meet, a pillar of good things in Limestone County. The reason you read about him so much in this small town is the good he never stops doing, the giving and helping he does. People like him make for a good America. Yes, everyone knows him, not just because he has a small business in a small town, but because of the good he does for all, His brother and dad were just like him, or should we say he is a chip off the old block. Part of the glue that holds this small town together, not giving way for total decay of a small American town. And you could put Bob Wright right there with the Flatts!
But for Richard Goswick, another story. Since your original article, amazingly his car dealership, located 2 blocks from that Stanford office, burned to the ground. While it has not reached this small town paper for news, the talk of the town in the local hometown, Blue Plate lunch spot, tells that this fire is now declared Arson and Richard has been indicted for cause of fire arson. Who knows? We will see.
Mexia is a great small town, fine Texas people who like most small towns in America are striving to compete with big town commerce to stay alive. A town that once grew by 40,000 overnight for Oil Rush and Federal Marshalls came in to control crowds. So much old oil money still remains in this town, and yes O.Y. Goswick and Stanfords Grandad were in the middle of the overnight get rich folks. A county rich in natural resources, oil, natural gas, and lignite coal. Wish I had a few acres of it, would be better than my SS.
Will be interesting to watch the rest of the story.
Hi,
THere is so many company which are fraud. So invest in private sector is very risky. For a person its not possible to decide which comapny is fraud. So I will suggest if anyone want to invest in private sector, he/she should take supervision. I will suggest go to http://www.askamarkettechnician.com and ask Mr Bruno he will guide you in better way.
Have a nice time.
Phew! SocGen profits only slump 63%
It doesn’t seem much to cheer about but Societe Generale investors breathed a sigh of relief when second-quarter net profit only fell 63 percent.
The investment banking unit may have taken a 1.2 billion euro hit but higher profits from its international retail banking and consumer credit businesses offset the damage and kept the group in the black.
In today’s doom-laden markets that was something to celebrate – and the shares jumped more than 6 percent.
It has been the year from hell for the venerable French bank, still in the shadow of the world’s worst rogue trader scandal and struggling – like its peers – with the global credit crunch.
In January, it revealed 4.9 billion euros of losses following rogue deals by junior trade Jerome Kerviel, forcing a 5.5 billion euros rights issue and making SocGen a takeover target in the eyes of many.
Magistrates are still studying what went wrong and who knew what about the Kerviel
