What happens when you put a Bangkok financial advisor together with the foreign managing director of a typical foreign controlled local law firm in Thailand and put them into the Thai property business?
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| Graham Macdonald MBE and Greg Pitt |
Well almost certainly it seems a lot of very unhappy investors and potential suicides.
But the second answer is that they both are going to fall out over cash – and when they do they will create anonymous sites on the internet, often through Google blogger, and go at each other hammer and tongs.
Such is the case with Gregory John Pitt, Managing Director of Mackenzie Smith Law firm and a Canadian financial advisor Richard Cayne, a Canadian from Montreal and boss of Meyer Asset Management, formerly of Tokyo.
Both were involved in a project with a company called ‘Royal Siam Trust’ based in St. Lucia. They were allegedly investing in land in Koh Chang in Thailand’s Trat Province hoping to make a killing on the rise of land prices. ‘The Royal Siam Trust’ website has been down for some time.
The Mackenzie Smith Law site has got a virus and Greg Pitt a former stalwart of the British Chamber of Commerce in Thailand seems to have dropped out of the social circuit in Pattaya where he appears to spend most of his time.
That maybe because there are claims on the internet that he has been jailed for 18 years.
I do not believe for a second that he is in jail. Nobody with cash goes straight to jail in Thailand. They go to appeal and the Supreme Court first – which can take at least a decade.
Nevertheless there is a long narrative headed ‘A Gavel Falls In Paradise’ written by a ‘journalist’ called Elliott Rosenthal on Pitt’s trial. Rosenthal claims to be the Asia Correspondent At Large for a publication called Money and Investing Weekly – but there is no internet footprint for either him or the magazine – so I guess it won’t be out next week.
The article is on a website called whitesandsbeach.com perusal of the site shows it has been set up to attack Pitt.
Richard Cayne is all over the net (articles in his favour) and he has a Drew Noyesque flavor about himself. Once you have read all the sun shine’s out of his posterior stuff and get to the nitty gritty you get a totally different picture.
‘Royal Siam Trust’ was supposedly investing in White Sands Beach on the island of Koh Chang, down in Trat. Pitt , a former pupil of Millfield School, was the CEO of the Royal Siam Trust while I understand Cayne was also a director and who put his clients’ funds in it (or not as the case may be).
A former marketing manager for Mackenzie Law is a man called Richard Prouse.
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| Alan Hall and Richard Prouse |
Could this be the same Richard Prouse who deputized for #AlanHall the former Chiang Mai Expats Club founding member and boss of PFM International, an IFA, who skipped Thailand last year leaving a lot of aggrieved clients?
Yes it is. Here they are together.
#RichardProuse, a former pupil of Norwood School, South London, famously gave an interview to the Chiang Mai City News in northern Thailand, claiming the whole world was against him – including his wife – showing the reporter his scars.
Now anyone who knows anything about White Sands Beach also knows that little happens on the island of Koh Chang, once designated in the era of Thaksin Shinawatra as a place of development for more well off tourists, knows also that little happens on the island without the involvement of a major island family – just like Koh Tao, Koh Phangan and Koh Samui in the south.
Most of the initial clients were from Tokyo which both men vacated to come to Thailand – #RichardCayne leaving with some very bad blood.
As for #GregPitt – I’m guessing that being an IFA and also the MD of a law firm in Thailand is the ultimate ticket. You can sue your investors under the Computer Crime Act if they insult you for losing their money.
Footnote: #AlanHall formerly of PFM International, which sold the now crashed LM Managed Performance Fund to Clients among others is now up and running with a company called Aztec Gas Limited not to be confused with Aztec Oil and Gas of Huston, Texas. He does gas central heating now having, he says been in the trade for 35 years.
Anyway the links are out there. Enjoy or weep.
COMMENT
Yep. I’m definitely outta here. Gone are the receptions for Foreign Correspondents. There’s a whole breed of Brits and others out there – all in Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, Volunteer Police, Masonic Lodges, Lions Cubs, whom I just don’t want to share a glass of Chardonnay with.
COMING SOON ON ANDREW-DRUMMOND.COM
CSD OFFICER FALLS FROM A HIGH POINT TO HIS DEATH AND IS CREMATED WITH 14 HOURS – THE BRITISH JOURNALIST CONNECTION
Other Thai law firms have been tied up in this:
http://whitesandsbeach.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/3-SKMBT_C25214032410590.pdf
Ah yes, Mr Richard Cayne, somewhat of a legend in Japan for all the wrong reasons. Here is a departure letter to "clients".
I would like to thank you for patronizing our services over the past 10 years. This notice serves as an announcement that Meyer Asset Management Ltd has closed operations in Japan due to several regulatory changes with the Japanese Financial Services Agency. Meyer Asset Management Ltd has been registered as a “licensed investment advisory agency” in Japan under the jurisdiction from the Kanto Local Finance Bureau as a Financial Supervisory Authority (hereafter the FSA).
Over the past 10 years we have been pioneers in advising clients on a range of over 200 top global fund companies each offering several lines of investment products and therefore Meyer wanting to keep a very open architecture advisory business where we can genuinely help advise our client to create portfolios of investments from the very best of investments around the globe have decided in an effort to be completely compliant with local laws and regulations cannot do this business in Japan.
In order for a firm in Japan to introduce overseas products to Japanese residents the introducing firm must be appropriately licensed and such products would have to be registered with the Financial services Agency and therefore to offer such a broad range of products would be impractical and cost prohibitive to register each one. In addition to which a securities or advisory firm in Japan is subject to information requests by the FSA or Japanese tax bureau at any time and would be required to release investors confidential information on demand.
Therefore due to client driven demand for more confidentiality and even wider range of services and products from our advisory service it has been decided to shut the Japan operations and clients will be serviced by Meyer International offices from Bangkok, Thailand operations center. We are pleased to advise that being based in Bangkok will give us the flexibility and strategic positioning to be very central to our clients all over Asia and allow us to offer clients even more global investment choices with a much higher degree of confidentiality.
In order to achieve ones financial objectives, investors need professional advice and need to receive support from an independent position at all times. We believe that having choices from a wide variety of investments products from all over the world in order to achieve such financial objectives is paramount.
Our consultants will explain to you regarding future business plans should you have any questions.
Thank you very much for your continuous support and understanding.
Sincerely yours,
Richard M. Cayne
Managing Director
Meyer Asset Management Ltd.
Address： Somkid Place, Soi Somkid, Ploenchit Road, Bangkok 10330 Thailand
Telehone： 813-6674-2128
FAX： 813-6674-2191
So, according to Cayne, registering investment vehicles with the FSA in Japan is "impractical" (translation: not subject to approval) and "cost prohibitive" (for the business offering them). And the FSA can gather private details about clients through their investment broker (translation: the FSA can investigate to see if the broker is complying with Japanese law). Finally, Cayne suggests Thailand is more "confidential" than Japan (translation: the Japanese authorities will be more likely to investigate dodgy businesses than Than authorities). Finally, a "consultant" will not contact you because there are no consultants. The 'consultant" will likely to be Cayne or a flavor-of-the-month associate.
Let the buyer beware.
Looks like the parasite ran away from Japan when the authorities decided to enforce regulation. They really don't like being registered and licenced do they? Too difficult to stitch up the unsuspecting punters with their useless managed funds and assorted ponzi scams.
What's the next best location – Thailand of course! Join the rest of the unlicenced unregulated and unscrupulous financial conmen preying on gullible expats.
Is it just a coincidence or do all conmen hide behind the sham of supposedly keeping their investors confidential information, only as a pretext to hide their own dodgy dealing?
Doesn't Greg Pitt strike an amazing resemblance to Rob Ford, the ex mayor or Toronto?
He sure does look like Rob? Why folk invest in these maggots beats me still. Play safe invest YOURSELF: 1/. property owned outright by you 2/. Treasury bonds. Too many Money managers have stiffed too many investors. A friend just told me he lost out to MMG Money Managers Group in NZ & Doug Edgar-somers. An unreal saga of how thousands of pensioners, elderly & normal people lost millions to these shisters & they got away with it. Makes one wakeup or does it??