A group of Singaporeans, who invested in Lehman Minibonds, is organizing a meeting on Wednesday (24 September) at the National Library to “discuss collective action and to sign a petition for submission to the authorities,” according to a notice posted on Mr Tan Kin Lian’s blog.
Jan Chan, who is part of the group from the website lioninvestor.com, who is organizing the meet up, told TOC that they are expecting a small group of 10 to 15 people for this initial meeting. The session will also be for brainstorming for any action which they might want to take, she said.
Lehman Brothers, one of the biggest investment banks in the world, recently filed for bankruptcy as a result of the credit crisis.
The meeting on Wednesday, September 24, is as follows:
Date : Wed, September 24
Time : 7pm
Venue : Outside Hans Cafe (#01-01) at the Central Public Library, 100 Victoria Street.
Mr Tan himself, who was the Chief Executive Officer of NTUC Income, is also organizing a meeting for investors affected by the Lehman collapse, according to his blog entry. In it, he says that he has received the “particulars of 70 investors of the credit linked securities” and will be arranging for a group meeting with them.
He is also advising affected investors to “write a letter addressed to the CEO of the financial institution” from whom they have bought the credit linked securities and to also meet with their Parliamentary representatives to let them know “how painful it is to lose the hard earned money.”
According to a Straits Times report on 23 September, Mr Tan urged the authorities to “investigate financial companies that sold retail investors these structured products, and take them to court if necessary”, if they had given “bad advice” or if they had broken the law by giving “inappropriate advice” to investors.
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Read also:
MAS says Lehman minibonds trustee HSBC has engaged legal counsel.
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There us much written about world class companies focusing on audit, transparency, integrity etc. so what ?
look at companies gone bust and the reasons. Full disclosure my ….
this world we live in is so honest and integrity wan.
I support the idea that all companies should not need to disclose anything.
Why audit? Can audit find out problems? Sure or not? How much paid to audit ‘consultants’? Sarbane oxley, basel 2, you name it. What are these?
Why no need disclose? For the sake of the companies. Their competitors may know what is their next move. So, to protect all companies, I support no companys should need to fully disclose their books. Like this more can keep their jobs. If known to the public, cannot cover up leh. die earlier. Die earlier is worse than company kaput later right? so, i support no need to disclose entirely. Since no need to disclose entirely, I am beginning to wonder the need for any disclosure at all.
people can enticipate moves leh….scarely hor?
the world full of honest and highly educated people of high integrity who work not for selfish motives. they sacrifice for the people only. ;)
regards
naive and ho pian
[b]Secure Chain[/b], if your sister was given bad advice (mispresent Minibonds as a bond when it’s not), you have a good case to take up with the FI.
MAS is the Monetary Authority of SINGAPORE. How can it expect to promote Singapore to be a First-Class Financial Hub when I have not heard of MAS helping us small-time investors who are losing our shirts-on-our-back over Lehman’s collapse?
We bought the MINI-BONDS with the thoughts that they ARE BONDS but miniature in size and so well promoted by the 6 well-known banks with big establishments and well-polished offices in Singapore. How would we expect that these banks DO NOT KNOW what they are selling? What about us non-financial people in the streets?
These banks should be held responsible as well. How else can SINGAPORE make it’s mark if it’s high-rental offices are filled up by all these dudes? Singapore being a up-and-coming financial hub, do external investors still have confidence with us if our own Monetary Authority of Singapore is not helping us to recover our money?
It is extremely inappropriate that MAS asked the banks to appoint independent party to investigate the mis-selling of minibond. I called up the telephone number that MAS provided. However, I was extremely disappointed to know that the so called independent party is a May Bank employee from the Compliance Dept. The investors are complaining about mis-selling of products by May Bank – how could MAS allow May Bank employee to be the independent party? This really doesn’t make sense!!!
Hope (#57):
MAS requires banks to appoint a 3rd party to oversee the complaint process, and not actually take over the complaint process. It is as stated on this press release.
As usual, the government attempts to hoodwink the public to cover up their inadequacy. In fact, the 3rd partyś role include surfacing any evidence of mis-selling to the banks´ senior management and MAS, when it ought to surface this evidence to MAS alone first.
Here´s another joke: the 3rd party must be independent of the bank´s financial advisory arm, so the compliance department of May Bank qualifies to handle your complaint.
My mom has lost all her retirement money due to unscupulous selling by banks.
Our disappointment is the govt has allowed this to happen and then walked away without helping the victims.
We have lost our money and our faith in this govt.
Is it time for people to reconsider the advice given by “bankers”, who are just fresh out of school or have not even saved enough for a downpayment to an apt?
Age might not mean that the financial intelligence is lacking.
However, it could mean that just out of school, their main priority would be to get that first pot of gold.
To #46: you suggest pull your money out of DBS/POSB. Then which bank do you recommend ? Is UOB in better position than DBS ? I think there is very little disclosure so not able to make any judgement. I am only thinking about FD’s and not anything of higher risk than that.
HONG KONG (AP) — Investors in Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong held their second protest in a week on Sunday, accusing local banks of misleading them about investment products backed by the failed U.S. investment bank.
Holding signs that said “Return my blood money” and “Crafty salesmanship, sugarcoated poison,” about 400 people marched through Hong Kong’s Central financial district to nearby government headquarters.
The protesters complained that banks that sold them Lehman-backed bonds didn’t properly explain the products to them and urged the Hong Kong government to better regulate methods of selling investment products.
nicks (#61):
I am actually in the midst of setting up a comparison table of various characteristics of different banks in Singapore, to see which bank offers the best deal for consumers. In advocating the closure of DBS/POSB accounts, a clear alternative must be made available too. Bank accounts can be savings, current or FDs. It is completely up to you to make your decision what sort of accounts you are considering.
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/278589.asp
With reference to Today’s Article “No High Returns without Risk” (29 Sep 2008), I find it shocking that SM Goh is politicising the situation instead of looking out for citizens. This is indeed shocking. The question is not whether there is higher reward for accomodating more risk. but if retail investers were poached to take more risk beyond their understanding. Instead, he politicise the issue to garner more support for PAP policies instead of looking out for citizen’s welfare.
Upon closing all my BANK accounts in Singapore, I think the next best option is to just to push a trolley and buy a few kilo of gold and put it under my mattress.
I can polish my gold daily and feel shiok. I can weight-lift them every day to exercise my old muscles. My heart is dearly close to my $$$$.
I can buy Home Insurance to cover for theft so that I will deal directly with the Insurance Company (not AIA, not NTCC), hmmmm. still need to find a trustable dude!
Maybe I will install CCTVs all round my house.
I think we can take better care of ourselves than all those so-called Financial Professionals or Licensing Bodies who steer clear of problems and conveniently DELEGATE OUT WORK to some unwillingly personnel so as to divert attention from themselves.
Maybe all of us should pool together and start our own MINI-BANK and start some nicely named financial products and get some nicely-heeled bankers to promote it aggressively. After all, getting a banking licence is easy wat.
With all those pool money, we could wisely invest in some equities and if the companies should collapse, we could still hide under alot of skirts ma.
Maybe I should put up a proposal plan and we can meet under the stars one of these nights……
How is it that Chen Li Ping’s husband, Mr Royston Tan, can be held in court for selling slimming pills of questionable contents, but we cannot put the 6 Professional Banks to be liable for selling a questionable product huh?
Can anybody give me a simplistic advice to my question? Dun give me too heavy stuff hor cas I not very well educated and all those chim terminology will knock me out. All those hidden fine-print clauses also I won’t be able to understand much because I am not legally trained either.
Ditto for my investments with Mini-Bonds. I placed my hard-earned sweat money there because I thought Mini-Bonds – safe and sound, now kenna back to square one – may need to walk the streets to hope to pick up some lose change from there.
Lehman (The Brothers) collapsed so got no PR spokesman, but what about all the 6 banks huh? Like no hear their Corporate Communications people out to defend themselves leh. Maybe, no talk so nobody will remember exactly which are these 6 Banks?
Can some kind soul help to list all these 6 Banks and give them some free publicity airing? Must give them chance to present themselves ma. Wah! Sell the product that time, they placed full page advertisement with their names big-big. Now all gone to take cover huh?
Thanks for helping me, one of those poor auntie who still know some English and use the computer.
Mini bonds can be considered as bonds issued by lehman brothers. It’s the same when you purchase the bond of any entity, if the entity goes bankrupt you lose the money you have used to purchase the bond.
I am sure all the risk of the mini-bonds were specified in the prospectus. This has always been a strict requirement by MAS on issuance of retail products. And within the prospectus there would be the full annual report of Lehman brothers or the SIV and that should let most investors know that the ‘wellness’ of the bond is tied to the health of the issuing banks.
Investors are ironical
1. they want safe products and they insist on higher returns than Fixed D, but FD is the risk free rate and if you want anything above risk free you need to take risk.
2. on the one hand they complain that sales staff are product pushing, on the other hand they penalize the banks by selling down the shares if their profit level does not reach the expected numbers. but profit levels can only be reached if high leverage of pushy sales were employed.
I agree the sales ppl have alot of responsibility, and I am not going to condone their behavior. In fact I just took one local bank to task recently and made them refund 12k to my parent in law that suffered the losses due to a miss-selling (not of minibonds).
If there are deception involved, yes by all means get a settlement out. But if the seller put there as minibond, then expect some potential losses. Bonds are never risk free, else they can never pay more than fixed depo/treasury bill rates.
freeier (#67):
Based on what you say is true, then the financial consultants should not be intercepting clients when they are at the bank counter to make FDs.
freeier (#67)
Many of the victims were misled in buying the Minibonds, just like your parent in law who had been made to purchase an equity income fund by one of the local banks a year ago.
The crux of the matter is the misleading info given by the banks/FIs – Minibond investors were told by the banks/FI that this product was a kind of bonds when in fact they were high risk CDOs and nothing to do with bonds at all. They told the investors that it is 100% capital protected.
Similarly, many victims were retirees like your parent in law who were called to convert their fixed deposit into this investment. There is no basis for the banks to pursue these old folks to buy these high risk investments when their risk profile clearly state that they are risk averse.
And like your parent in law, they only now realized that the Minibonds is not capital protected.
I know of a 76 year old lady who was conned into putting all $200K of her life savings into this toxic Minibonds when she went to renew her FD at the bank. Even if she is educated, how would one expect her to read the fine print of the 60 page prospectus with her bad eyesight. These financial advisors/bank sales people are so unethical, in their selfish quest to make more commission $$$, they don’t even spare old folks.
Some of the banks, including DBS and DahSing, had agreed to settle through mediation and have been negotiating with individual investors on compensation deals, according to a report in the Apple Daily.
http://news.theage.com.au/world/hks-govt-meets-banks-accused-of-misselling-lehman-bonds-20081002-4smm.html
Can anyone tell me why the Lehman minibonds is only sold in Hong Kong and Singapore? Why did the government of United State not to save this particular bank? Are there any more American financial institutes that borrow money only from Asian?
Thanks if you can drop me some lines.
Annie,
It was written somewhere that the majority of Lehman creditors are foreigners.