Alternative investment - EcoHouse

Last month I read from the Straits Times that an alternative investment, EcoHouse Brazilian residential project, has failed to make payment to investors. 

I remembered that about two to three months back there was also a report from Straits Times that another alternative investment, Detroit Exit Strategy, by Infinity Treasures Pte Ltd, failed to make payment to investors.

To recap, Detroit Exit Strategy is a house flipping scheme which offered investors Fixed 15% returns in 12 months.

Natal-based Ecohouse was founded in Britain in 2009 after the Brazilian government launched a program to help poor families buy subsidised community houses, whose construction is funded by private investors.

EcoHouse offered a 20% fixed rate of return for a 12-month investment contract on residential project in Brazil for a minimum investment of 23K pounds. The returns are generated when the house is resold to a Brazilian buyer at a higher price.  

The key risk is that if there is no buyer, the investors are stucked with a property in Brazil.

Many EcoHouse investors claimed that they have not received their returns or their capital despite their contracts reaching maturity.  EcoHouse Group has been added to the MAS investor alert list.

Link to MAS Investor Alert List


Now, the Brazilian government has clarified that EcoHouse is not connected to the residential project in the country and so effectively confirming that the EcoHouse investment is a scam.

I  find both these schemes similar. Both purported providing housings in foreign countries for the poor people. The scammers scammed money from investors and told them it was for humanitarian purposes.  And now sadly chance for investors getting back their money is basically nil.

The takeaway from these lessons (Sunshine Empire, Profitable Plots, Gold Guarantee, etc, etc) is to stay away from these abnormally high ROI investments.

IPO - Ireit Global

It was a bloodshed for the recent IPO (Accordia Golf Trust) on its opening day of trading.

The unit opened at $0.87, compared to the offer price of $0.97. It was an immediate 10.3% decline in capital for the unfortunate IPO investors.  The unit went down to as low as $0.80 before recovering to $0.85 at first day close and 12.4% lower than the offer price of $0.97.

Currently, Accordia Golf Trust was at $0.825 (last Friday's close) and about 15% below its IPO offer price.

The timing for IPOs is just not right now due to uncertainties caused by Ukraine and Gaza Strip crises, Argentina default, Ebola outbreak in Africa, looming increase in interest rates, etc.

Accordia Golf Trust was only 0.7 times subscribed and because of poor investor sentiment, I expect Ireit Global highly to be the same.

One good indicator is my broker has contacted me again asking me to subscribe to Ireit Global units.  And of course I declined again.

My Stock Portfolio @ end Jul 2014

No.	Stock Name	Lots	Portfolio%	Avg Cost$	Breakeven$	Market$
1	Starhub	5	15.73	3.22	2.72	4.26
2	SGX	3	15.64	4.19	2.85	7.06
3	SPH	5	15.33	3.99	3.39	4.15
4	SingTel	2.2	6.58	3.37	3.20	4.07
5	CapitaMall Trust	4	5.82	1.76	1.35	1.97
6	AIMS AMPI Reit	5	5.52	1.47	1.42	1.495
7	CapitaLand	2	5.10	3.91	3.61	3.45
8	SATS Ltd	2	4.45	3.06	3.10	3.01
9	Suntec Reit	3	3.97	1.52	1.11	1.79
10	CDL HTrust	3	3.88	1.66	1.11	1.75
11	Starhill Global	6	3.66	0.71	0.54	0.825
12	SIA Engg	1	3.43	4.86	4.92	4.65
13	Frasers CT	2	2.87	1.81	1.76	1.94
14	HPH Trust	3	2.05	0.90	0.83	0.745
15	SPH Reit	2	1.57	0.94	0.93	1.06
16	Boustead	1	1.36	1.44	1.43	1.84
17	Sing Post	1	1.30	0.875	0.64	1.76
18	CitySpring	3	1.11	0.65	0.46	0.50
19	FE HTrust	1	0.65	0.93	0.87	0.875

Movement in my portfolio in Jul:-
Sold:- Nil.
Bought:- CMT.

Dividends collected in Jul: $72.92
2014 avg dividends/month: $376.86


Poor dividend intake for July.  Can't wait for August to come...