Structured products may well be the new mutual funds. But financial innovation inevitably attracts regulatory scrutiny, suggests McCarthy Tétrault securities lawyer Ronald Schwass, especially when it comes to features and techniques that are not typically permitted in a mutual fund structure. Hence, it’s incumbent on advisors to attend to the details in new structured products. […]
Quebec’s securities regulator is taking 24 advisors and company officials to court for their role in selling $160 million in unregistered promissory notes issued by the failed Mount Real group of companies. They face $4.2 million in fines, with each of the 619 charges carrying a fine of $1,000 to $15,000. Mount Real, a listed […]
Acknowledging himself as “the apostle of the apocalypse” thanks to his warnings about overleveraged homebuyers and a shaky U.S. dollar, Eric Sprott says his greatest fear lies with his counterparties — the prime brokers from whom he borrows stocks to sell short. “Where’s the cash? We can pretend we’re making money, but if you don’t […]
Hedge fund manager John Xanthoudakis and two other Norshield officers are facing an Ontario Securities Commission hearing that could see them fined $1 million each on charges of breaching securities law and conduct contrary to the public interest. RSM Richter, Norshield’s receiver, has already reported that retail investors, who put $132 million into Norshield are […]
(September 2006) In the 1990s, investors and advisors, out of necessity, learned to be Fedwatchers. The unexpected rise in interest rates in 1994 hammered bond funds. An observation on “irrational exuberance” by U.S. Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan in 1995 precipitated a market pullback. Currency shocks in 1997 and 1998 made U.S. Treasury bills a […]
Central banks may be approaching a neutral interest rate and reaching the end of their tightening cycle after years of fairly predictable increases, leading observers to wonder whether there will be a renaissance of 1990s-like volatility. The place to look is emerging markets, says a recent note by TC Bank Financial Group economist Richard Kelly, […]
(August 2006) The potential recoveries aren’t looking any better for Olympus hedge fund investors, nor is the principal cooperating quite as much as he has privately told investors, says RSM Richter in its latest update. Richter is the receiver for the whole Norshield complex of hedge funds and private equity investments. Canadian retail investors put […]
Norshield group’s retail creditors — who could be looking at recoveries of as low as three cents on the dollar from their $132 million investment in the failed Montreal hedge fund complex that sponsored the Olympus United funds — may be able to draw on an additional $35 million identified by receiver RSM Richter. Prosecution […]
There are no grand gestures in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s inaugural budget. It’s more slender than previous Liberal budgets and, like the Tory party, comes cloaked in blue. But the headline number of $20 billion in tax cuts is meant more for consumers, students and families, rather than investors. And, gone are the extensive last-minute […]
Some 2,000 institutional and retail investors looking at as little as three cents on the dollar on the $330 million they placed with failed Montreal hedge fund complex Norshield Financial Group have company. About 1,600 creditors of another Montreal firm whose principals had long-standing business associations with Norshield also have claims to the firm’s scant […]