Land investment cum Development
Edgeworth Properties / Edgeworth Ventures / Edgeworth Mortgage Investment Corporation
Edgeworth Properties Inc.
5500 North Service Road
Suite 106
Burlington, On L7L 6W6
CA
http://www.edgeworth.com/
Edgeworth Properties had branches in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines & Taiwan. It was set up as a so-called development-banking company. It prided itself as a better company than its other Canadian competitor (which Edgeworth copied), by saying that Walton was merely a landbanking company, while Edgeworth a developer.
It sourced land in most of western Canada. Sold units of land in the form of Undivided Interests to Asians in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and tried briefly to establish in Taiwan.
Between 2007 to 2011, the company had sold 12 pieces of raw lands through its Asian offices, affecting investors of over 3,000 people, of which a vast 60% from Singapore, 30% Malaysia and the rest in the Philippines (with perhaps very little from Taiwan). Total losses from investors in this region is hovering in the region of Canadian Dollars $73 million / Singapore Dollars $94 million / Ringgit Malaysia $232 million.
Between 3rd and 4th quarters of 2010, Edgeworth had announced its upcoming maturity in 2011, involving 3 maturities. The first would be in June 2011. Canadian Tax forms were filled out by investors of these 3 so-called "maturing" projects.
The bomb was dropped on all investors in June 2011, when the country manager came announcing that the company Edgeworth had "no money", giving excuses that the "economic crisis" had affected them and a bad director in Canada tried to take-over (hence lost money fighting that director).
The Chairman at the time was Donald G. Hurst. The Country Managers in Singapore, Leslie Ng, resigned prior to the "bomb shell" being dropped on investors. So did the Vice President of Asia Pacific at the time, Michael Yap. He was replaced by Edwin Neo, who proudly claimed to have great experiences in landbanking company Walton. In Malaysia, even a sadder case. Its country manager, Lee Kim Haw, used distorted facts to get more investors to buy into Edgeworth's investment. How did he do that? He told investors that following SSM's investigation (end of 2008)/ release of edgeworth properties malaysia (July 2009), a trustee account was set up with cimb bank. He claimed that no money would be sent out of malaysia without any ownership title is received by investors. You guessed it: the money did not stay in Malaysia. If it had stayed in Malaysia, all projects' money collected from sales after July 2009, would be safe. Whose fault? The Malaysian authorities? The country manager?
The sad thing was, in Malaysia, many people were not aware of the situation. The country manager went on to "encourage" his consultants to sell with a newly launched project. He even sent out updates of Edgeworth Properties via printed materials; ie. the newsletter and other official letters.
Since its declaration of "no money", the company kept telling its investors to give it more time to look for buyers to JV in projects, so that it could pay its creditors, and pay investors. Of course, nothing like that happened.
The company actually filed for "bankruptcy protection" in Canada. It was obviously buying time, so that no one could take action against it/him.
In Asia, the investors are betrayed by the top management people. The money paid to the Edgeworth Properties accounts in the various Asian countries are drained, to fill some pockets in "God knows" where!
Why did so many fall victims to Edgeworth Properties of Canada?
They had used big legal firms in Canada to write their agreement. They have used big audit firms to do their accounting. They had used renowned names as their directors in their start-up phase. They had physically done small developments, submitted some development plannings to local authorities,... but alas, most are done half ways, fees in arrears, and many other matters many of us are simply not aware of.
Now, he is using "bankruptcy protection", so victims will remain victims for a looooooooooooong time.
Special Situation Blog :-
I would encourage our reader to be careful when invest "new idea" investment products with no direct-license from bank negara (M'sia) / MAS(Singapore).
There're a lot scams waiting to trick us. Don't trust those high return yield investment. If you want high return, invest in stock market with special situation strategy.
