Profitable Plots

[Drizzt]

i wonder if Bryan Robson should take part of the blame for being in Profitable Plot's advertisements

[corydorus]

The more popular the investment, the stronger they seems, the more money they can rollover, the longer they last.
The Best ones can last till the scammer's next generation.

[pianist]

Property Blog » Property News » Profitable director’s appeal dismissed
Profitable director’s appeal dismissed
Property News by Mavis on November 18, 2011

An application by Geraldine Nordmann, a director of Profitable Plots Pte Ltd, for the return of her passport and permission to live in Malaysia was dismissed in Singapore’s Supreme Court earlier today.

Mrs Nordmann, who had previously been allowed to travel to the United Kingdom to attend a family wedding, requested a variation in the terms of her bail bond to allow her to reside in Johor Baru.

Council Wendell Wong argued that the length of the investigation into Profitable Plots by Singapore’s Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) was causing inconvenience to his client, who jointly owns three properties in Malaysia with her husband John, a fellow director of the company. The court heard that Mrs Nordmann had recently sold a HDB flat which she had jointly owned with her mother.

The Honourable Justice Steven Chong, in dismissing the appeal, said, “It is not open for this court to vary a bail bond just because the investigation is taking longer than expected. Asking for liberty to reside in a foreign country is unprecedented. This situation has been brought about by her own decision, which I find quite inexplicable.”

Wong explained the decision to sell her Singapore property was made as the market for HDB resale flats was more liquid, and trying to sell one of her Malaysian properties would take much longer.

Profitable Plots is under investigation by the CAD for allegedly not paying its investors. Complaints against the company to date are believed to total more than S$30 million from more than 5,500 investors – around 1,500 of whom are believed to be Singaporeans.

The next court date has been set for March 8th, 2012.

[Musicwhiz]

Business Times - 09 Mar 2012

Profitable Plots complaints top 320

Judge gives CAD till April 9 to decide on frozen accounts

By GRACE LEONG

(SINGAPORE) More than 320 complaints have been filed to date with the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) against beleaguered land banking firm Profitable Plots, which was accused of cheating investors of more than $30 million in various schemes it had promoted, according to a CAD report just released.

District Judge John Ng yesterday ordered a hearing to be adjourned to April 9, to allow the CAD to report on what it wants to do with the $55,548 in Profitable Plots' bank accounts it had frozen.

That's the amount that purportedly remains in the company's accounts after the High Court in November 2010 had ordered the release of up to $130,433 and $87,492, respectively, for payment of the company's employees' salaries and CPF contributions.

The company, which was raided in August 2010 by the CAD for allegedly not paying its investors, had S$273,473 in one account plus nearly £3,000 (S$6,000) and US$3,265 in two other accounts as of Oct 31, 2010.

CAD said it needed more time to complete its investigations because it was awaiting the return of John Andrew Nordmann, one of Profitable Plots' directors, for an interview on March 26. Mr Nordmann is currently in the Philippines 'attending work-related matters', the report said.

Wendell Wong, Profitable Plots' lawyer and a director of Drew & Napier LLC, said the company believes the funds ought to be released back into its bank accounts.

'Any disputes the clients may have with the company arising from the agreements signed would have to be resolved with the company. But the funds belong to the company as they are in the company's bank accounts, and should be released back to it if CAD can't make a case to continue freezing the funds,' he said.

The CAD, in a report yesterday, said the complaints are related to 'the failure of Profitable Plots to repay the capital and promised returns upon maturity of the investments made'.

According to the company's website, Profitable Plots said in a Jan 27 statement that draft accounts of its fiscal year ended March 2009 (which have not been filed yet owing to the ongoing investigation) showed net current assets of $95 million.

Sources told BT it is unclear what the status of the CAD probe is and whether there will be any criminal charges assessed against the company.

'The investors want to know how long more prosecution will take to complete their investigations and bring this matter to a finality, and allay their anxiety,' said David Gerald, president and chief executive of Securities Investors Association (Singapore).

'But the investors take comfort in the statement that Profitable Plots put out in January that said it has $95 million in assets. But they wonder where the money is because the police are saying there's only $55,548.42 in the accounts,' he said.

It is estimated that about 1,500 Singaporeans and 4,000 foreigners invested in Profitable Plots, which was established in 2004. A large majority of these investors are retirees who invested their savings on the promise of high returns.

[Musicwhiz]

The Straits Times
Mar 27, 2012
Profitable Plots directors charged with abetment of cheating

By Elena Chong

Three directors of an investment firm, Profitable Plots, were charged in a district court on Tuesday with 86 counts of abetment by conspiracy to cheat a total of US$2.4 million (S$3 million).

John Andrew Nordmann, 53, Timothy Nicholas Goldring, 58, both Britons, and Nordmann's Singaporean wife, Geraldine Anthony Thomas Thomas, 44, allegedly conspired to cheat investors into putting their money in an investment scheme to buy a product known as the Boron CLS Bond, a chemical-based lubricant technology, between 2008 and 2010.

The amounts in the charges ranged from US$2,000 to US$300,000. The court heard that only US$3,625 has been recovered.

The land banking company, which was set up in 2004, hit the headlines in August 2010 when Commercial Affairs Department raided the offices of its Singapore-based company and seized documents as part of its probe.

So far, the CAD has received more than 320 complaints against the company, which has been accused of cheating investors of more than $30 million in various schemes it had promoted.

The clients - mainly retail investors - had put their cash into land in the United Kingdom and the Philippines and the industrial lubricant called Boron, among other investments sold by Profitable Plots.

The prosecution had sought $600,000 bail for each, but the trio's lawyer, Mr Wendell Wong, argued that $15,000 would be enough to compel their attendance in court.

District Judge Lim Tse Haw fixed the bail at $400,000 after listening to arguments from both sides.

The case will be mentioned again on April 10.

If convicted, each of them faces a jail term of up to 10 years and a fine on each charge.

[Musicwhiz]

25% per annum returns is a viable investment scheme? Please, take your lies elsewhere!

The Straits Times
www.straitstimes.com
Published on Apr 22, 2013
Profitable Plots' directors driven by greed: Prosecution

By Khushwant Singh

Three directors of Profitable Plots, who are charged with cheating 86 clients by getting them to invest more than $8 million in a sham investment scheme, were motivated by "greed" said the prosecution. At the start of the trial on Monday, a district court heard that Timothy Nicholas Goldring, 58, was the group's managing director while John Andrew Nordmann, 54, was its operations director in charge of sales and marketing. Both men are Britons while Nordmann's wife Geraldine Anthony Thomas, 44, a Singaporean was the firm's financial director.

In his opening statement, Deputy Public Prosecutor Luke Tan said that when faced by the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, the group's land-based investment products suffered losses. To ease cash-flow problems, the trio hatched a plan to get clients to pump money in the Boron scheme, which involved financing the sale of a fuel additive known as Boron CLS Bond to major corporations.

Each of them faces 86 charges of allegedly conspiring with each other to cheat clients by offering 12.5 per cent return within a maximum period of six months."Unfortunately, these representations, while sounding good, were definitively untrue," said DPP Tan.

When cross-examining the first witness, Mr Lim Kok Meng of the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD), the trio's lawyer, Mr Wendell Wong, accused the agency of over-reacting to rumour-mongering and "commercially killing the investment scheme by raiding its offices, seizing documents and freezing bank accounts". In their defence, the trio are insisting that they had operated a viable investment scheme.

[AlphaQuant]

A large majority of these investors are retirees who invested their savings on the promise of high returns.

sigh - u can protect them for a long time, but u cannot protect them forever...

preservation of capital at retirement is much more important than returns on capital....

[d.o.g.]

I guess the investors didn't understand that the name "Profitable Plots" referred to the returns for the promoters and not the investors.

There seems to be no end of people queueing up to pay the "stupid tax" in Singapore. Sadly, I expect that people will start to think for themselves only after they stop trusting the Singapore government. Some paranoia is good for protecting your money. But this will make it harder for the government to implement its policies, as more citizens will refuse to play along. Oh well. You can't have it all.

[pianist]

hmm..interesting to view this exercise as a 'stupid tax'.

is that the need for cpf as a 'safe'?

[d.o.g.]

hmm..interesting to view this exercise as a 'stupid tax'.

is that the need for cpf as a 'safe'?

The CPF "safe" has already been cracked open at least twice. First, when the government allowed people to use CPF to buy their homes.

Since the CPF money was only otherwise accessible at 55, this change of rules allowed people to bring forward their future retirement spending and use it for current consumption i.e. buy a house to live in NOW and worry about retirement later.

As it happens, housing prices went up a lot in the next couple of decades so they got their cake and ate it too. Of course, now their children have to pay for it - witness the endless complaints about housing being unaffordable for young couples. You can't have it both ways - cheap housing for your kids means no capital appreciation on the house you bought. But of course many people want to sell their house at a high price (to someone else) and then have their kids buy houses cheaply (from someone else). It doesn't add up! But then, people are not rational.

The CPF "safe" was raided one more time when, in a bid to develop the financial industry, the CPF Investment Scheme was created. Money was allowed to be invested in financial products, from shares to bonds and unit trusts. Initially the profits could be withdrawn, but CPF members did not have to put in money to make good on their losses. So heads you could take out money, tails you didn't have to cough up anything. And this coincided with the dotcom boom. You can predict the result.

Scores of people invested their CPF savings and then lost most of it before the government stepped in. Direct investment in stocks was cut to 35% of the CPF Ordinary Account, and profits could not be withdrawn. CPF members could still invest 100% of their OA balance in unit trusts, so the unit trust industry did not collapse overnight from mass redemptions. But of course the damage to CPF accounts was already done.

The creation of the CPF Life annuity system, and the fact that participation in CPF Life is now compulsory, suggest that the government believes that the average Singaporean is unable to spend wisely in retirement, and should therefore be protected from his own stupidity by withholding his money from him. It is not unlike a parent who buys a big packet of M&Ms, but doles them out one at a time to a toddler who would otherwise eat them all at once and get sick.

If people want freedom to spend their CPF any way they want, they need to accept that some of them will make bad decisions and suffer, and that they cannot blame anyone but themselves. With freedom comes responsibility. Many will still blame the government, of course.

When we as a society are willing to see homeless old people begging and sleeping on the streets because they made bad decisions and lost all their savings, we will be ready to lift restrictions on CPF. If we want the government to help these people, we have to accept that there are only 2 practical ways to do it:

a. give these people food/shelter/money (which means higher taxes); or
b. prevent these people from becoming poor in the first place (which means CPF Life)

As usual, YMMV.