How do Singaporeans feel about life in Singapore?
Read this report.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Happy noteholders who received 100% compensation
I wish to pass this message to the 1,200 happy noteholders who received 100% compensation.
You have spent a few months of agony and worry. You were uncertain about whether your money would be gone forever.
You were deilighted to receive the recent letter or telephone call that you would be getting 100% compensation. Some of you wrote an e-mail to thank me for helping to achieve this happy outcome.
I wish to ask you to consider this possible situation. Suppose you had received a offer of partial compensation (which you consider to be insufficient) or a rejection. How would you have felt? There are 10,000 noteholders who are in this unhappy situation.
What can you do to help the other noteholders? I ask you to consider to express your support and solidarity for them.
Perhaps, if you are generous, you can consider donating 5% of the amount that you received towards a fund to help them to get legal opinion and assistance? This is just a thought. If there are sufficient people interested to make this donation, I will get someone to organise it.
Role of private capital
Private capital thrives well in a booming economy. They make easy money. They even contribute towards creating bubbles in asset prices. As the prices keep going up, they make more money.
When the bubble burst, private capital is unwilling to take risk. This caused the collapse of the credit market.
Read this article.
The Governments have to step in to provide funds to re-capitalise the banks, to guarantee bank deposits, to guarantee the credits of borrowers (i.e. homeowners, small businesses). In this case, what is the purpose of private capital?
This has happened in USA, UK, Singapore and many other countries.
What is the solution in the future? I believe that the capital has to be provided by the state (it is already happened) or by state-sponsored mutual funds. Ir should not be provided by private capital that are driven by short term gains.
Sue the relationship manager
A noteholder wanted to sue the relationship manager for giving bad advice. Other people said that there is no point to sue the relationship manager, as he will not be able to compensate the noteholder for the financial loss.
Someone told me that this is a good strategy. The relationship manager is likely to confess and tell the truth. In that case, the wrong-doings of the financial institutin will be brought to light. They might be more willing to give a fair settlement.
Google documents
I am now using Google documents to publish my survey findings. I wish to thank the reader that give me this wonderful tip.
Tips - what to avoid
1. Never invest with borrowed money
2. Never invest from a marketing company (e.g. time share, land banking, etc)
3. Never invest to get a free gift (it comes from your own money)
4, Nver invest in something that is too good to be true (it is!)
Read this article about Storm Financial.
Current market values of the credit linked notes
I wish to ask visitors to share what you know to be the current market values of the various series of credit linked notes (i.e. minibonds, high notes, pinnacle notes, jubilee notes, etc).
Please post the current values here, with the dates. Also, indicate the source of the information, e.g. website.
The note-holders will be receiving the offer of compensation from the financial institution soon. They will need to compare the offer with the market values, to make sure that the offer is at least higher.
If I have sufficient information, I shall organise them in an easy to read format. Please share your information for the benefit of all.
Contact persons (distributor, products)
Click here for the email address of the contact persons based on the distributor and type of credit linked notes:
My view: decision on 5,000 complaints
Here are my views about the decisions made by the banks on the complaints of mis-selling of the credit linked notes.
1. About 1,280 (25%) noteholders will receive full compensation. This is good news and is higher than I had expected. I like to know the amount of compensation to see if the full compensation is given mainly to the small investors or is well distributed among the small and large investors.
2. About 1,670 noteholders (33%) will be offered partial compensation. To help them decide on whether to accept the compensation, they should be informed the current value of their notes, so that they can make an informed decision.
3. Another 6,000 noteholders have not lodged their complaints yet. They should step forward to lodge their complaint now, if they have been mis-sold.
Rating of political leaders
How do Singaporeans rate our political leaders?
Here are the survey results.
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