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April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Indeed this is all true and I would strongly urge you to contact CE for your paperwork specific to the resolution.
The original investment of an LP, registered on land titles, with further registration of me as a partner in the LP with ASC provided me with a sense of security. As a property owner one is fully aware that low rental or lease levels will impact cash flow returns and in the case of personal direct ownership, may require supplementing the capital available for the debt service on a temporary basis.
This modification however is not a reflection of this situation. As an example, MEG Place, by CE’s own documentation, is fully leased. There has not been a distribution of cash after debt service for the quarter ending the end of January 2009. So what has become of the $167,000 that rightfully should have been distributed to the LP members? My guess is those dollars have been used to further this restructuring effort. This is not acceptable and I have communicated this to the ASC for their attention. At least with the reduction in distributions from the other property I am involved was “explained” in a nice letter. Although the lack of financials means there are behaviours here that are at the very least unethical, and at most criminal. Why else would an organization not provide an accounting of where MY money was going and why? A lack of transparency means somebody is lying…..it is odd that noone has mentioned this fact here. It is evidence that CE’s tactic of fogging their investors is working…..I have an idea!! Pay me what you owe me and then we will discuss what to do next…..because until that happens you are a crook.
Based upon the retention of the cash flow dollars by Concrete, which a share of is rightfully mine, they have evidenced they are in a desperate cash flow position. So it begs the question, why should we undertake this ammendment? Simply to provide CE with the opportunity to cover up some very poor management….40% interest as an example. They have gotten themselves into a stiuation out of which they can not emerge. And how is this my responsibility? Why should I assume significant liabilities and further, significant exposure to risk because some management team is unable to direct affairs with a level of sensibility?
So where do we sit? If we do not pass the resolution then these monkeys will continue to stand as GP for the assets and eventually, and not too distant future, they will be insolvent. We would need replace the GP and continue onwards with the LP structure as orignially purchased. I am not sure what dowside in terms of returns or values of my property would emerge from this scenario….Anyone have thoughts? At least they will not be able to sell anything without due process of approval.
If we do approve, then strategic gains condtrol the assets and the CE monkeys have the only deciding votes determining what happens to my asset….which would become all the buildings being syndicated or previuously syndiated. I am not happy with this thought as sigificant liabilities exist. I know that this process WILL cost me money. And if it is true they are looking to do an environmental salvage of properties in Ogden to develop under this newly created fund….someone would need a swift kick in the nuts. In addition, the paperwor outlines that CE will not take a big chunk of transaction revenues, but will charge 20% for administration. This is above and beyond the lift they have already extracted, as example from $25-million purchae to $31-million syndication on Glenmore and the Airways buildings, and the admin fee they charged when the LP was first offered…..incredible!! In this scenario the three stooges have the only voting rights and can divest whenever they see fit. It is also a little obvious when one reads the resolution documents that a lift is built in….why esle would all the other proerties state, purchased for $XXX on date and the glenmore airways page say…..Syndicated for $31,000,000?
I have seen a cou[ple of postings from investors claiming to have contacted the ASC and other authorities…have you any commentary from them regarding what their process is uncovering?
At this point nothing CE is doing is in the ineterest of their Investors…they are in survival mode. The only salvation potential here is to have a regulatiory authority step in….stop everything….and do a full forensic audit.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Hello,
I am also a LP in 2 Concrete Equities Investments who is totally against this restructuring. I have filed a complaint with the ASC, I have also filed a complaint with the Alberta Insurance Council and have written an email to the Honourable Iris Evans, Minister of Finance.
I have discoverd that Dave Jones is an insurance salesman, nothing more. He isn’t licensed to sell or advise on the purchase of stocks, bonds or mutual funds to Albertans. He is just an insurance hack who is licensed only to offer life / accident and sickness insurance products, which includes only segregated mutual funds (available through insurance agents, exclusively). Who would have guessed it listening to his blow by blow daily commentaries on the capital markets. I discovered this info from the Alberta Insurance Council site. http://www.abcouncil.ab.ca/
The only thing I’ve heard back so far from the ASC is that they are investigating. We need more people to file complaints against Concrete and Dave Jones.
We need this meeting planned for the 15th stopped until we can get the information we need from Dave and his boys. The more bad publicity for them the better. There is a meeting of the Limited Partners tonight at 7 pm at the Victory Centre out on the #1 highway to Banff. (right next to the Wedding Pavilion) Any limited partners who can make it are invited and it’s in your best interests to attend and get all the facts, particuarly if you’ve already voted Yes to the restructuring plan. You can rescind your proxy vote if you have already sent it in.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Unfortunately, I’m in Edmonton and can’t make it to the meeting tonight. Could those of you who managed to attend please give the rest of us a summary of what was discussed and action to take.
Thanks
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Have any of you tried to get a list of all the other LP investors? If you did not get a list, what were the reasons?
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 am
To stop the meeting….maybe the media should become involved. After the issues with the CE executive club last December they would likely be VERY interested
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 am
Today is the deadline for submitting the proxy vote as NO. If any of you know an investor along side of you I urge you to contact them…..get them to send theirs in with a no vote and call anyone they know as an investor in turn
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 am
I was at the meeting last night, although I agree with the direction that we are going. I would suggest that we don’t lose focus of what we are trying to accomplish here, We want to retain the buildings that we invested in and get rid of CE. They are in serious trouble and will eventually piss away our money. There was a lot of discussion about voting the GP out which I am all for but lets make sure it is replaced with someone who knows what they are doing. I don’t trust Avenue commercial as the property managers, they have a lot of history with the building but if they knew Jacobs was moving out shouldn’t they have been marketing the space 6 months before they moved out? Patrick White was smooth in throwing CE as the cause but he is a professional and should have been paying attention to his building. Besides, I knew investors when Avenue commercial had owned it and not all the information was disclosed in regards to the parking lot next door.
I believe the investors need to be patient and not try to push the lawyers to drum up some large legal bill. We have rights as an investor, lets vote no against the conversion and vote the GP out! In the meantime we need to be careful of who is the right group to step in as GP. The GP will need to be able to obtain financing on SNC immediately and other buildings as well as take on the risk in this market to manage the real estate. I don’t believe we have anyone in our investor group willing to take on that risk. I will do more research and see what I can come up with for some suggestions.
On the legal side, I believe that Varun Aurora, Vincenzo De Palma, Dave Humeniuk and Dave Jones should be named in a lawsuit for cause and damages. I was always cautioned about investing with these idiots and I should have known better but they were all good snake oil salesmen. None of them had previous successes for a track record, mostly just bullshit they created to pad their resume! In fact they all popped up when the market boomed. These guys have made large profits on our backs and enjoying the good life in Mexico or where ever else they are set up and I don’t think they should be allowed to just walk away. They should have to pay back some of their profits via the lawsuit and we should make damn sure it happens.
I will provide updates shortly.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 am
My husband and I attended the meeting last night to show our support and found it very positive how we have come together in order to protect our investment. We are in a number of projects including SNC.
I am very certain we will not lose our investment from the overwhelming response last night.
I agree that we need to be careful about voting out the general partner too soon as we will take on that liability immediately. I have consulted a lawyer friend of mine that has some experience in this situation and he is willing to provide some direction.
I have done some due diligence on both Concrete and Strategic from the market place in Calgary, my findings are as follows;
Concrete is burdened with high marketing cost, frivolous spending, purchasing projects at the peak of the market and failed to understand the intricacies of real estate investing. They were promoters and the industry only saw Concrete as exactly that. If you wanted to unload some expensive real estate, sell to Concrete! Speaking to one of the real estate brokers that is familiar with them, they have no experience on completing due diligence on real estate and rarely cared to question information provided to them.
The management team of Aurora, Depalma, Jones and Humeniuk really made money just selling the investments to us, no effort was made by the management team to continue to manage the real estate post closing. Humeniuk has a terrible history of deceptive practices which is well documented at RECA. Jones is nothing but a snake oil salesman who pushes stock that he can’t show he invested in but more of a Monday morning quarterback bragging about what great picks he had. Depalma who promotes Dragons Den has never been a venture capitalist and does not have the money to enter into these ventures himself, rather just rides the coattails of the show and its real panelists. Aurora is pretty much unknown in the market other then having a family who is involved in selling insurance/mutual funds and holds a number of rental properties in northeast Calgary. All I have to say is that we really got duped by these characters with the glitz and their special investment clubs.
Strategic is a large real estate company and developer in Calgary, controlled by Riaz Mamdani. He is a lawyer and well known in the Calgary community as well as to the securities commission. When I inquired about him, most just say to stay clear of him. This proposal only works for Strategic, no one else! Why else would we have to pay 2% of our purchase price to them for cost.
What about our cost?
We may need to sacrifice some distributions but if we stick together I am certain that we will achieve our goal and retain all our real estate.
As mentioned last night, anyone of us is just a bug but together we are a swarm!
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 am
The vote is postponed and the meeting adjourned until further notice.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:00 am
That is great news! I still think that we need to vote the GP out. They do not have our best interest in mind, I have been talking to a few lawyers and in due course provide our group with a shortlist of parties that have the ability to step in and take over. In the meantime, I say we still pursue the management team for damages.