Just one day after I made the first post regarding Capital Blu I got an update from them in my email inbox. It seems they have decided to not accept any signups whether directly or INDIRECTLY until they are registered with the FSC.

Here’s an excerpt:

CAPITAL BLU hereby advises all attendees at our Jamaica seminars that it is not at this time soliciting any foreign exchange trading business in Jamaica and is not at this time accepting any funds directly or indirectly through any third party from anyone in Jamaica until fully regulated by the Financial Services Commission and any other relevant governmental authority.

CAPITAL BLU intends to make application to the relevant Jamaican regulatory agencies to ensure full legal compliance with Jamaican law and has commenced the process of obtaining the relevant legal, accounting, regulatory and financial advice regarding the establishment of legal operations in Jamaica. As we proceed in this process we shall keep all interested parties updated through our website.

CAPITAL BLU has knowingly received no funds to open accounts and no customer agreement accepted. However, if this has erroneously occurred such monies will be refunded and any customer agreement rescinded.

Capital Blu is yet another asset/fund-management operation purporting to provide persons with monthly returns through forex trading activities. From my understanding they are based overseas. They were here a few months ago putting on a series “Introduction to Forex”-type seminars. What I noticed they kept emphasizing was that they would not be taking any signups until they were registered with the FSC. Every single time they said that however, they would also mention in the very same breath that you can sign up with their overseas partners if you so desire. I’ll leave you to read into that.

The outfit is run by Donovan Davis Jr. who is either Jamaican, or grew up in Jamaica. I sent them an email asking for the details on the kind of returns I could expect if I signed up with them. Here is a quick run through of the details:

Minimum investment: $1000 US (They did mention however that after March 31, 2008 they would not be accepting deposits that were less than $5000 US. I’m not sure if they followed through with that. )
Targeted monthly returns: 2-7%

Given the recent mishaps with Cash Plus and May Daisy even “serial risk-takers” have become a little more risk-averse as it relates to these investment schemes. I have no idea how “legit” Capital Blu is but you may visit their website at www.capitalblu.com to gather some more information. As usual, caveat emptor - let the buyer beware.

I got the first addition to my prinicipal a couple of days ago. I signed up towards the end of December so they prorated the  payout to reflect the one week in December that my account was actually active. The payout rate this month is 20% (I’ve been told that it may fluctuate from time to time).

I didn’t actually receive a cheque since Ive decided to just let it rollover for at least the first couple of months. Like I said, so far, so good.

Now I’m not even going to venture into the ‘ins and outs’ of the recent/ongoing battle with the FSC, nor argue about whether or not Cash Plus is a Ponzi Scheme in disguise. That’s for another post, some other time. For now I’m just wondering about the viability of this company from a purely financial standpoint.

Cash Plus recently put out some unaudited financial statements and the picture it paints is not a very pretty one. Even as a ‘layman’, I am able to deduce a few things for myself. ‘Working capital’ for the company is negative, which means the value of the assets than can be most quickly converted to liquid cash (current assets) is far less than the sum of the company’s current liabilities. Which means that if the company were right now called upon to service all its short-term debt it could find itself in quite a jam. The figure in the ‘Intercompany Receivables’ line caused my brows to raise a bit too, but I wont comment on that since I, like many others, have no real information upon which to base any kind of conclusion. I also wondered why there was only a Balance Sheet and no Profit & Loss Statement; is there something they are hesitant to have us to know about how their money is really spent? This revelation has given critics of Cash Plus much to harp on. While this in itself does not mean the company is doomed to failure (many successful companies spent years in the red before they started to show real profits), I do think it, in part, points to questionable decision making on the part of Cash Plus’ management team.

For one, I personally think that one of Carlos Hill’s big mistakes was running out and buying up all these different businesses just because he had the money to do so. I suppose he figured the joy ride would have gone on forever so he would never have to worry about these purchases mopping up the company’s liquidity, after all, people were lined up at his offices day after day dying for a chance to throw their money at him. I believe Cash Plus has spread itself too thinly. Maybe, if he had focused on building and honing just a few companies, those that showed most profit potential, he would be in less of a mess liquidity-wise, even amidst the recent run on the company by the scaredy-cats who went scrambling to get their money out at the first glimpse of trouble. Maybe.

Will Cash Plus be around for the long haul? Is it sustainable? Or am I ludicrous for even implying that the company could even have a chance at surviving beyond the next few months? Somehow, I really do not believe that this is the end of CashPlus. I believe they still have some fight in them and that we will at least see them ‘compose’ themselves to the point where their ‘lenders’ will once again start receiving their monthy consideration…at least for now. Nevertheless, I am still concerned about the long term viability of this group of companies. So, will they survive? I don’t know, but for the sake of the many poor people who have thrown their hopes, dreams and money behind Cash Plus, I sure as hell hope so.

I signed up with MayDaisy last week and sent in a bank draft for my deposit today. This is a blind risk if there ever was one. I have no real background information on the company nor any of its principals. A good friend of mine who is always one-up on these HYIPs referred me to it. She has been a member for approximately three months and has gotten 20% return on her money each month thus far.

They refer to themselves as an “e-Partner Plan”. The information I was provided with after having my application approved stated that they were involved in the business of foreign exchange trading. There was no information on who is behind it or how long they have been in business. Here is an excerpt from that bit of information:

“MayDaisy’s Partner Plan has borrowed some of the terminologies of the traditional Partner and formed an electronic (e) Partner Plan. For emphasis, we state that have used the terminologies only. This is not a traditional Partner. A Partner is a commonly practiced method of savings amongst friends. However, in this instance, the partnership exists with yourself and MayDaisy only. Access to the system is via cyberspace on the website www.maydaisy.com.

…

What MayDaisy will do for you as your Banker, is place your Hands on the foreign exchange market for trading. Members have enjoyed handsome gains from our skilful traders.”

There is no ‘minimum’. However, after speaking with someone who works for them I was told that there is a $25 charge whenever a deposit is made, so technically speaking the lower limit for deposits is $26. I will be posting an update on this coming month’s return (if and) when I receive my first cheque.

The following is a post I made on my personal blog some time ago. It attracted quite a few comments that you might find interesting. The comments link is at the bottom of the post.
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I went to a Forex Expo over the weekend. It was the first of its kind that I’d ever seen put on in Jamaica, and since I have been dabbling in FX trading for the past 2 months or so I decided to go. (I was introduced to it by a ‘chiney’ friend of mine who seems to be genetically predisposed to having money work well in his favour. I say all the time that black people tend not to teach their children very much about business and money management, which may not be entirely their fault as we do not have a history nor legacy of being business people [compared to the Jews, Chinese etc]. I could go on and on about this, but that discussion would need its own post).

The first three sessions of the expo were very good and I picked up quite a few pointers that I could see being immediately useful. In the last two sessions however I lost interest slightly as the presenters (MTI and I-TradeFX) began to shamelessly promote their own services, which in all honesty was to be expected, I stuck around nevertheless as I was hell bent on winning one of the gate prizes. Though I won nothing I did find something extremely interesting, almost everytime time Jared Martinez said the name David Smith there was a loud round of applause in the auditorium. I said to myself, “this man is a frigging celebrity!”, and its really not hard to understand why. This man has, almost single-handedly, started to revolutionize the landscape of the financial sector in this country. For years we were stuck with getting returns of 4-5% per YEAR on whatever money we placed in the various banks. We knew it was meager, but we pretty much took it for granted that that was the way it had to be. Then came along David Smith, a man with years of experience in FX trading who formed an ‘investment club’ called OLINT and started giving his members 10% return per MONTH on their investment. Yes, you checked that right, that’s 120% per year. A year or two ago the government cracked down on his operation, stating that he was putting people’s money at risk and that he was not licensed to do what he was doing. The government’s argument was load of crock, but that is what happens when people are ignorant and choose to fight against what they do not understand instead of learning more about it.

Nevertheless I don’t think the actions of the government were based on their care and concern for the people of Jamaica. These new investment clubs were causing an upset. They were ’showing up’ the financial institutions who were giving us cents on the dollar (if so much) from the fruits of our investments. The heads of these institutions continually rub shoulders with the decision makers of this country….I am sure you see where I am going.

Enough of the PNP AND the JLP. I say David Smith for President!!!

(I’m kidding about that last bit, but the party in power should really take some advice from that man).