Category: Money & Investments

The Groupon/Coupon Bubble Will Burst Soon

I posted the above status update earlier today, and when asked to explain myself on Facebook, I wrote up a rather lengthy explanation that seemed worth of turning into a blog post…so here it is (slightly edited for clarity).

I’ve talked to a few small businesses now that have used these new coupon services, and in every case so far, they’ve been financially maimed by them. Some due to their own ignorance or poor financial understanding, some by the salespeople at the deal companies.

A carpet cleaning company used Kijiji and the salespeople wouldn’t allow him to put a limit on the number of coupons sold – because they wanted to gain as much revenue as possible from it of course. They charge 50%, like everyone seems to, and still tacked on another 2.5% in credit card processing fees. Talk about adding insult to injury. Thankfully for him, only 150 people ordered the carpet cleaning – he was smart enough to spread out the appointments, only booking the Kijiji deals three times a week. That makes it frustrating for customers like me to get the service in a timely fashion – it took two months for me to get my booking in – but given that he’s working at 77.5% off his normal price, he’s only breaking even on supplies and travel costs…so his labour is free. Hard to feed a family on that!

In my case he made some money – I had him do two sets of stairs, which weren’t a part of the deal – but he said nearly every time people only want what the coupon covers. So as soon as he hits 500 square feet of carpet cleaned, he stopped.

Most businesses hope for repeat customers, but the type of customers that use deals like these are usually the kind who aren’t willing to pay for a service at full price in the first place. So you end up with people using your service at no profit to you, and you don’t get many new customers out of the deal. There are some exceptions: the guy that did our carpets did such an amazing job I’ll absolutely use him again, paying full price and b happy about it. I think that’s rare though.

Some deals can scale, no matter how many coupons are sold. I just bought a $10 for $20 at Old Navy for example. Old Navy could sell 10,000 of them and their stores could handle the extra traffic just fine. But the small carpet cleaning business, if he suddenly has 500% more clients than before, it soaks up all his excess capacity (good) but also uses up all his future capacity for the next six months (bad), at no profit. I heard of a cleaning company that went bankrupt because they sold too many coupons – again, because the company wouldn’t let them restrict the number of coupons sold – and it was easier to go bankrupt than to absorb the losses of the poor business decision of using the coupon service.

Avenue Commercial Castleridge LP Investment Corp. Annual General Meeting Notes

Today I attended the Avenue Commercial Castleridge LP Investment Corp. Annual General Meeting and finally learned about the status of our troubled Concrete Equities investment. There’s some bad news, and some good news. Overall though, it was net-positive: the bottom line is that there’s some debt to deal with (the vultures want their pound of flesh), but we have full ownership of our property, are cash-flow positive, and things are looking up in terms of us eventually getting back on track for the cash disbursements we all signed up for. I took as many notes as I could; here they are in point form:

  • Presented by Steven Butt, General Partner, Avenue Commercial
  • Very positive on this particular building
  • They were given millions of pages of documents by Ernst & Young; hard drives. Five months of work to process, several hundreds of thousands of pages scanned
  • They’re not going to go back and look at all the documents – they’re moving forward
  • We now have financial statements (hooray!)
  • T-5013 tax forms are available
  • Castleridge: 8.25 acres of property, 74,000 square feet of leasable space
  • Building constructed in 19991 and in good condition, but the overall property needs some work. Suffers from a few years of neglect
  • Nov 2007 we paid 24.2 million for the Castleridge location. Concrete took $3.2 million as their fee.
  • The June 2008 appraisal was $18.5 million; the June 2010 appraisal $18.2 million
  • Loss in value of $5.7 million. Why? Large promotion fee, receivership costs, spike in retail vacancy, 30% vacancy
  • Exit of CCAA after 1.5 years in July 21st, 2010

Continue reading Avenue Commercial Castleridge LP Investment Corp. Annual General Meeting Notes

Avenue Commercial Schedules Annual General Meeting

If you’re an investor in any of the five ill-fated Concrete Equities properties in Calgary, now being run by Avenue Commercial, there’s an important meeting coming up on April 29th. It’s being held at the Highland Park Community Association Hall (3716 – 2nd Street NW). The schedule is as follows:

  • MEG LP Investment Corp: 9:00am  to   9:45am
  • Millrise Deer Valley LP Investment Corp: 10:30am to  11:15am
  • Castleridge LP Investment Corp: 12:00pm to  12:45pm
  • Lavalin LP Investment Corp: 2:00pm  to  2:45pm
  • CE Place Investment Corp: 3:30pm  to  4:15pm

You’re required to bring photo ID with you for registration – which starts 30 minutes prior to each meeting, and closes 10 minutes after the meeting starts – and only registered owners will be permitted into the building. I’ve emailed them to ask if husband/wife combos are permitted; the investment is in my wife’s name, but I’m the one who handles the investments in our family – so far no response from them, but I’d be surprised if they said not to this. No audio or video recording devices are permitted.

The email I received with this information alludes to some good news, so I’m tentatively hopeful that the investment we have in Castleridge will get back on track and earning us money like it was always supposed to.

Working with a Resume Professional is Sometimes the Best Choice

As someone who spends a good part of his day writing – blog posts, reviews, editorials, email, etc. – I pride myself on my ability to put words down in a cohesive, effective manner. So you’d think that when it came time to update my resume, it would be an easy task. Not so much. I don’t know if it was the fact that I’ve never been overly comfortable writing about myself, or if it’s that the idea of putting together a resume from scratch was extremely daunting. I hadn’t updated my resume in seven years, so when I looked at it and saw how outdated it was, I wasn’t sure where to start. I toyed with in for more than two months before accepting the fact that I needed help getting it done. Yes, there was a strong case of denial at work – and while I was initially reluctant to spend money on having someone help me write my resume, I finally accepted that it was the best approach.

I did a quick Google search for “resume writing” and saw an ad by Resume Lifesaver, a.k.a. Sarah Wright, and clicked on it. I found Sarah’s costs to be reasonable, her response time consistent, and she was an absolute pleasure to deal with – especially since I was an uncooperative client, often taking weeks to respond to her at the beginning. She also took the time to have a phone call with me to learn about what I wanted my resume to communicate. There’s something I find profoundly unpleasant about working on my resume, and she was patient with me while I slowly convinced myself to finally tackle this project.

If you’re looking for someone to help you write a new resume from scratch, update an old resume, or re-work your current resume for a new job, I can recommend Sarah Wright and Resume Lifesaver without reservation.

And here’s a tip: once you get your new resume, update it a couple of times a year with significant accomplishments and career milestones. Don’t worry about it getting a bit long – you can trim out the unnecessary stuff when it comes time to share it. You’d be surprised at how easily you forget some of this stuff if you don’t write it down!

9 Things The Rich Don’t Want You To Know About Taxes

“John Paulson, the most successful hedge-fund manager of all, bet against the mortgage market one year and then bet with Glenn Beck in the gold market the next. Paulson made himself $9 billion in fees in just two years. His current tax bill on that $9 billion? Zero. Congress lets hedge-fund managers earn all they can now and pay their taxes years from now. In 2007, Congress debated whether hedge-fund managers should pay the top tax rate that applies to wages, bonuses and other compensation for their labors, which is 35 percent. That tax rate starts at about $300,000 of taxable income—not even pocket change to Paulson, but almost 12 years of gross pay to the median-wage worker.”

This is a stunning, eye-opening article about taxes in the USA. Reading it made my head swoon – there’s so much corruption, deception, and outright lying going on when it comes to the issue of taxes, it makes you wonder how much longer this can continue. I’d classify myself as “anti-unnecessary tax” – I have no problem paying taxes every year because I know that my taxes go toward funding the things that make the lives of my family better: healthcare, defence, roads, police, fire-fighters, etc. I don’t embrace extra taxes, however; the GST we have in Canada (currently at 5%) irks me because it’s a tax everyone has to pay, regardless of income level, and when you combine it with the taxes we already pay on fuel, property, etc. it adds up. Paying taxes are part of what it means to live in a society where services are provided though, and seeing people – very wealthy people – manage to get away with paying nothing is infuriating.

Avenue Commercial Communicates About Concrete Equities

Since I still get emails every week or two asking for information about what happened to the Concrete Equities investments, I thought I’d share this piece of communication that came out in October of 2010. In a nutshell, Avenue Commercial has taken over as property managers for the five Calgary properties (Millrise Deer Valley, Castleridge, MEG Place, CEP, Lavalin). If you have an investment in something other than those five properties, you should contact Ernst & Young’s Calgary office at 403-290-4100 to inquire about the status of your investment.

The PDF below has some of the background information, but as of mid-February, no specifics have been given out about where each property is at in terms of financials and revenue. I’m not aware of any payments having been sent out to any investors yet; when I inquired earlier this month about the status of things, I was told there would be an AGM in the first week of March. No date, no location as of yet.

“To Our Valued Investors; For those of you I have yet to meet, I would like to introduce myself.  I am Steven Butt, the President and Founder of Avenue Commercial and feel honored to be the person for whom nearly 100% of you voted in favor for as the new General Partner. Over the past 18 months, I have had the pleasure of meeting, speaking and hearing the concerns of many investors as we together have fought through many significant challenges to salvage your valued investments. Now, after many emotional town hall meetings, court sessions, receivers meetings and countless hours of work on the part of our in house team, our legal team and your steering committee, we have exited many of the court proceedings and the future of your investment at last appears much brighter. As most of you know, we suffered through extensive damage from a cash flow perspective as the court process initiated by Concrete Equities cost the Limited Partners in excess of 3 million dollars and we are coming out of restructuring with numerous smaller creditors and over 3 million dollars in debt  payable to the Strategic group.  These are not paltry obligations and it will take some time to retire our trailing debts but with hard work and a structured payment plan, we can and will shed these obligations over time.”

Avenue Commercial Investors Update Oct 2010

Avenue Commercial’s contact information: 403-802-6766 / www.avenuecommercial.com

Alberta Securities Commission Notice of Hearing for Dave Jones, Rachael Poffenroth, Varun “Vinny” Aurora, David Humeniuk, and Vincenzo De Palma

I haven’t published anything lately about Concrete Equities or Wealthstreet, but things are continuing to evolve with those companies and the people who ran them. Late last year, a notice of hearing (or possibly two?) was held for Dave Jones (A.K.A. Colin David Jones), Rachael Poffenroth, Varun “Vinny” Aurora, David (Dave) Humeniuk, and Vincenzo De Palma. When we were clients of Wealthstreet, Ms. Poffenroth was the president of the company.

To any lawyer reading this: no statement made in this post can be considered libel; I am simply re-publishing publicly available information. I make no allegations myself, and all data provided is from public sources.

The two PDF documents below have the details, but allow me to quote two sections from the second PDF:

Allegations: Summary of Breaches (Page 3)

“1. Staff of the Commission (Staff) allege that Varun Vinny Aurora (Aurora), David Humeniuk (Humeniuk), David Jones (Jones) and Vincenzo De Palma (De Palma) breached the Act by acting as dealers without being registered in accordance with Alberta securities laws, and without an applicable exemption to the registration requirement, or by authorizing, permitting or acquiescing in such conduct by one or more corporate entities of which they were a director or officer.

2. Staff allege that Aurora, Humeniuk and Jones breached the Act by making, or by authorizing, permitting or acquiescing in the making of, statements each knew, or ought reasonably to have known, were misleading or untrue in a material respect, or that did not state a fact that was required to be stated or that was necessary to make the statement not misleading, and that would reasonably have been expected to have a significant effect on the market price or value of the security in question.

3. Staff allege that Aurora, Humeniuk, Jones and De Palma each breached the Act by trading in securities on his own account, or authorized, permitted or acquiesced in the trade of securities on one or more companies’ own account, in circumstances where such trades were distributions, without having filed a prospectus or preliminary prospectus for which a receipt had been issued by the Executive Director of the Commission (the Executive Director), and for which no valid exemption applied.

4. Staff allege that Aurora, Humeniuk, Jones and De Palma each acted contrary to the public interest.”

The Impact of the Respondents’ Actions (Page 10)

“76. The Offending Partnerships and CE Fund collectively raised approximately $110,000,000, with $96,735,000 raised using the impugned Offering Memoranda referred to above. In total the Concrete Group raised over $118,000,000 through the issuance of securities to 3,723 investors.

77. On May 26, 2009 Partnerships 1 through 5 sought and obtained protection from their creditors through the filing of a Notice of Intention to Make a Proposal under section 50.4(1) of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. B-3 as amended. On June 9, 2009 Ernst & Young Inc. was appointed as Interim Receiver of Partnerships 1-5.

78. On July 29, 2009 Concrete, the Offending Partnerships and each of their general partners were made subject to a Receivership Order (the Receivership Order). Ernst & Young Inc. was appointed Receiver for each entity.

79. Prior to the Receivership Order, the shareholders of the Concrete Group received distributions of slightly under $5,000,000. This represents a payment of only roughly 4% of their investment principal.

80. In contrast, prior to the Receivership Order, Concrete was paid over $15,000,000 in commissions as a result of the various Concrete Agreements. However, under the terms of those Concrete Agreements, Concrete was only entitled to commission payments of $10,107,750. Concrete was overpaid approximately $4.9 million.

81. In addition to the commission payments to Concrete, Aurora, De Palma, Humeniuk and Jones were also collectively paid over $8.0 million as directors of the various Concrete Group entities.

82. In its Third Report of the Receiver, dated December 2, 2009, Ernst & Young Inc, as Receiver, concluded that “based on the information presented in this report it is clear that the directors of Concrete mismanaged the affairs on Concrete in material respects.”

83. It is uncertain what recovery, if any, will be made by the 3,723 investors in the Concrete Group of their collective $118,000,000 investment, and significant further recovery of their investments is questionable.”

The two PDFs are below and can be downloaded, printed, or shared. Continue reading Alberta Securities Commission Notice of Hearing for Dave Jones, Rachael Poffenroth, Varun “Vinny” Aurora, David Humeniuk, and Vincenzo De Palma

Hi, I’m Jason. I’m a Cautionary Tale to Investors

“Of course, not all seminars are created equal. Some are bad ideas, others encourage insanely risky behaviour and, to be fair, some are useful. Most people think investment scams target the elderly and most vulnerable. To counter that idea, I offer the story of Jason Dunn, a 30-something lifelong Calgarian, prolific blogger and generally smart person. To make a very complex story simple, after attending an investing seminar, Dunn borrowed $50,000 against his home and bought a stake in a strip mall, Castleridge Plaza.”

I was contacted a few months ago by a reporter for Avenue Magazine named Tracy Johnson. She found several of my blog posts here about Concrete Equities and Wealthstreet, then contacted me to discuss what happened. We spent quite a while on the phone – the story needed context – as I explained what’s happened over the past few years. I chose to talk about what happened with my investments as a cautionary tale to other investors; this quote pretty much sums it all up from my perspective:

“As someone who routinely spends hours researching which digital camera or laptop to purchase, in retrospect I’m shocked that I didn’t do at least as much research when selecting a company to invest my money in — especially when I was investing 10 to 20 times more money than I’d ever spend on a camera or laptop.”

You can check out the full article here – it’s worth a read.

Dragon Fund Meeting Scheduled for June 16th

If you’re an investor that has money in the Dragon Fund, the fund originally started by Dave Jones of Wealthstreet, you’ll be interested in knowing that the trustees of the Dragon Fund (of which Dave Jones is no longer one) have called a meeting. I phoned Michael Arnold (one of the trustees) today to ask what the latest updates were on the land in Airdrie, and he said they had been contacting investors via email – and that the email they sent me bounced. The meeting is being held on June 16th, 7pm, at Southside Victory Church (6402 1A Street SW) in Calgary. I’ll be there and will report back what the trustees tell the investors.

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