The 1,900 Canadian retail investors who put $130 million into Olympus Funds aren’t likely to see more than six to eight cents on the dollar, Norshield Group’s receiver, RSM Richter told an investor meeting on Tuesday. At worst, they will see three to five cents on the dollar, and that only after two to three […]
Retail clients will get a chance to learn more about the fate of their investments in the failed Olympus United hedge funds next month. RSM Richter, the receiver for the Norshield Group, has announced an investor information meeting for February 21 in Toronto, with videoconference links for investors in Montreal and Vancouver. The meeting comes […]
When the four pillars of the financial services industry collapsed in 1987, the banks bought the premier brokerage houses — and continued to buy. By the late 1990s, it seemed there might be no mid-tier left either, as firms such as Newcrest Capital, Midland Walwyn, First Marathon, Richardson Greenshields, Schwab Canada and Levesque, Beaubien Geoffrion […]
A few investors — unwillingly but luckily — managed to escape Portus Group’s stratagems, according to the most recent report filed by receiver KPMG. Investors, with 30,000 accounts put $738 million CAN and $50 million US into Portus’s purchase of guaranteed notes, of which only $529 million CAN was invested, $133 million CAN and $36 […]
(November 2005) Regulatory worries about the proliferation of principal protected notes (PPNs) may well spill over into the Guaranteed Investment Certificate market, at least index or market-linked ones, which have hitherto been exempt from securities rules. At issue is what might be called a series of “K’s” that follow from the Know Your Client imperative […]
Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s quarterly report, released this week, had two items of concern to advisors: whether trusts — not income trusts, but inter vivos and testamentary trusts — are properly reporting their income, and whether the CRA has kept track of RSP overcontributions. While Canada’s tax system is based on self-assessment — individuals report […]
Retail investors in the failed Norshield Group of companies, which include Norshield Asset Management and Olympus United Funds, may only get back $8.5 million of the $132 million they placed in Norshield funds, according to the second report of receiver RSM Richter. The receiver stresses that this is only a preliminary finding. In addition, RSM […]
(October 2005) For many years during the 1990s it was conventional wisdom for plan sponsors, big and small, to follow a certain pattern for investing. Generally, plans took a traditional approach whereby 60% of investments went into stocks and 40% went into bonds. But the times are changing for pension plans and they are increasingly […]
(September 20, 2005) After six months, and nine reports, receiver KPMG has offered a first accounting of the Portus Group’s investment structure, a structure so complex that the receiver says it is not practical to trace Portus investments back to individual investors. Instead, the receiver has recommended that the best way for 29,000 investors to […]
(June 20, 2005) Retail investors expecting valuations to gallop ahead once income trusts are incorporated into the S&P/TSX Composite Index may want to rein in their expectations: pension funds may be wary about investing in what is for them a new investment vehicle. While some pension funds have been active in the income trust space, […]