All Forum Posts by: Edward Condon

@Chris Seveney

@Chris Seveney
It is impossible to pay too much attention to Dr. 7E's posts!

@Roger Ortega
Welcome to Kansas!  You are going to love it here.  The opportunities for your daughters are boundless.  This is a great place to raise kids.  I moved here 20 years ago after having lived for 20 years in the NYC-metro.

@Chris Seveney
I saw your post re: "faux endorsements" by name-dropping.  A related deception is the bogus use of the word "partner".  As in, "We have partnered with Apple."  So you bought a phone, big whoop.

@Chris Seveney
@Don Konipol
There are ironies among ironies here.  The SEC wants PPMs to protect investors.  In fact, PPMs protect investment sponsors.  Every PPM says somewhere in it (page 461, in the 4-point type, in the footnote), "What? Are you crazy? This is a high-risk investment! If you make this investment, not only are you going to lose all your money, you're gonna get dandruff, your dog is gonna die and your daughter is gonna run off with some biker dude!"  (I paraphrase.)  My gut says that Norada got "all lawyered up" and promoted an extraordinarily one-sided deal.  (Likely reprehensible, but legal.)  Had Norada limited itself to what was in the PPM, they might be OK, legally.  However, it appears as though the promoter went way beyond the PPM.  I saw an excerpt of an e-mail in which the promoter said, in effect, "This is not a high-risk investment."  He should have said, "Do your diligence. Read the PPM."

@David Kanarek
I'm really sorry you find yourself in this situation.  From what I can see on the other thread, you let Norada toss the coin and say, "You call it. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose."  Had everything gone well, you would have gotten "debt returns".  With things going badly, you get "equity risk".  I can't know from where I sit, but the possibility exists that this is a genuinely crappy, asymmetric, yet legal deal.
This requires us to exercise our right to convert your Note and issue equity (aka membership interests) in Norada. You will recall that your Note allows Norada to convert the outstanding balance owed into equity and that it can redeem that equity in the future by repayment of the Note principal in full.
Thanks for warning others.

@Don Konipol
Hi Don,
This is a little beside the point.  Re: Madoff.  The "tell" was not suspiciously high returns.  It was impossibly low volatility.  He claimed to be investing in the US equity market (18%-ish annual volatility).  Yet, he reported monthly returns to his investors that rarely, if ever, fell outside the 0.80% to 1.20% range.  If the S&P 500 is down 3.50% for the month and the fund manager reports a 0.80% gain, either he is not invested in the US equity market, or he is lying.  Madoff had true victims.  But, many of Madoff's "victims" thought Madoff was skimming market-making profits to subsidize their returns.  Some of the "victims" were victims of their own greed.  In some cases, the maxim "You can't cheat an honest man" applied.

@Jay Hinrichs
Dear Jay,
You, sir, are an optimist.  You appear to take a much less dim view of your fellow man than I do.
"Norada is one of the largest and successful turn key Brokers in the US.. so equity in the company is probably a very good thing while they shore up whatever it is they need to shore up."
The way I read the text, when times get bad, Norada flips debt holders to equity holders.  If good times return, they flip the new equity holders back to debt.  If good times don't return, the new equity holders go down with the ship.  (P.S.  With nothing on which to foreclose, these "Note Holders" were "Note Holders" in name only. They were equity holders with capped returns.)

@Paula Impala
From what I can see on this thread, the investors let Norada toss the coin and say, "You call it. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose." Had everything gone well, investors would have gotten "debt returns". With things going badly, investors get "equity risk". I can't know from where I sit, but the possibility exists that this is a genuinely crappy, asymmetric, yet legal deal.
This requires us to exercise our right to convert your Note and issue equity (aka membership interests) in Norada. You will recall that your Note allows Norada to convert the outstanding balance owed into equity and that it can redeem that equity in the future by repayment of the Note principal in full.

@David Kanarek
I'm really sorry you find yourself in this situation.  From what I can see on the other thread, you let Norada toss the coin and say, "You call it. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose."  Had everything gone well, you would have gotten "debt returns".  With things going badly, you get "equity risk".  I can't know from where I sit, but the possibility exists that this is a genuinely crappy, asymmetric, yet legal deal.
This requires us to exercise our right to convert your Note and issue equity (aka membership interests) in Norada. You will recall that your Note allows Norada to convert the outstanding balance owed into equity and that it can redeem that equity in the future by repayment of the Note principal in full.
Thanks for warning others.