Posted by Shaun Altman
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 01:46:00 GMT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 20, 2007
GINKO PERPETUAL BOND LIQUIDATION PLAN
Greetings,
I'm Shaun Altman. As the majority bondholder of Ginko Perpetual Bonds (GPB), as well as an independent third party with no direct affiliation to any institution at which Ginko (Nicholas Portocarrero) holds assets, I am taking it upon myself to oversee the fair and equitable liquidation of GPB's current assets, and the timely compensation of all bondholders.
My avatar is currently acting as a virtual liquidation trust, to take possession of and liquidate all GPB assets, so that a cash liquidation dividend may be provided to all GPB bondholders. I have spoken with IntLibber Brautigan, CEO of Brautigan and Tuck (BNT), who has agreed to transfer 8,783,436 shares of Brautigan and Tuck stock from Nicholas Portocarrero's name into mine. This share balance represents GPB's entire holding of BNT shares, and establishes my virtual liquidation trust. IntLibber Brautigan has farther agreed to act as a broker for my virtual trust by selling GPB's land in its estate, and providing the L$ resulting from this sale to my trust for distribution to GPB bondholders. Brautigan has also agreed not to impose any additional burden on GPB bondholders by requiring my trust to pay tier on the land in question.
I will continue collecting GPB assets for liquidation until October 31, 2007. If you are currently in possession of, or "listing" GPB assets, please contact me prior to October 31, 2007 to arrange for these assets to be transferred into my name for liquidation. If you KNOW anyone who is in possession of, or "listing" GPB assets, please ENSURE that they see this press release and contact me prior to October 31, 2007. If Nicholas Portocarrero has any remaining cash or other assets that he intends to return to GPB shareholders, he should contact ME prior to October 31, 2007 to transfer said cash and other assets to my Second Life account for liquidation and subsequent distribution of proceeds to GPB bondholders. If not, he should leave me an IM stating that he will not be returning any of the $750,000.00 USD worth of cash and other assets to his bondholders.
On November 1, 2007, I will be distributing another press release to major Second Life media centers documenting the following:
1. All assets (cash, stock, land, etc) that I was able to recover for liquidation and subsequent distribution of proceeds to GPB bondholders.
2. All known GPB assets that have been stolen by third parties who refused to provide them for liquidation and subsequent distribution of proceeds to GPB bondholders, and the names of the parties responsible.
Once all recovered assets have been publicly documented, I will begin liquidating all non-cash assets to recover as much cash as possible for GPB bondholders. Once this liquidation is complete, I will distribute a third press release to major Second Life media centers documenting the total amount of cash that was recovered for GPB bondholders. At that point, I will hand all cash to LukeConnell Vandeverre, who maintains GPB's bondholder records, for IMMEDIATE distribution as a cash dividend to GPB bondholders. Once this liquidation dividend is posted to the accounts of GPB bondholders, GPB will be considered fully liquidated and all bonds should be delisted.
I will be charging nothing for my liquidation trust service. I believe that GPB bondholders have been through enough at this point, and have a right to recover as much as they can from this fiasco. Being the person with the most GPB bonds, as well as a neutral third party to asset holders, makes me the right person to handle this liquidation. The ball is already rolling, so I ask that all bondholders recognize this, and recognize that I am working in all of our best interest. I hope that it makes you happy to know that someone is finally working in YOUR best interest for the first time in a long time. I hope that I will be able to recover a sizable portion of GPB's assets for distribution to all of us, but I can't make any promises.
To be clear, I am not acting as a CEO of Ginko, nor am I in any way affiliating myself with Ginko. I am merely overseeing the liquidation of a failed virtual "business" that operated, or was based in, the Second Life world, so that its investors can recover as much as possible.
Regards,
Shaun Altman
15 comments
Posted by Shaun Altman
Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:54:00 GMT
On October 17th, 2007, the World Stock Exchange announced a fraud compensation package for shareholders at the bottom of this public announcement. When I read about the compensation package, I thought it was worthy of both examination and preservation. Lets examine it together. I've also taken the liberty of preserving the portion of this announcement that deals with the compensation package at the bottom of this article, as announcements frequently vanish from the World Stock Exchange announcement system.
Here are the basics of the fraud compensation package:
- A new exchange traded "fund", called WSE Traders Fund (ticker symbol WTF) will be created.
- The "fund" will hold shares of Hope Capital (ticker symbol HCL), the same "company" that owns World Stock Exchange.
- All shares in fraudulent World Stock Exchange companies will be destroyed, and newly created shares of WSE Traders Fund will be given to the shareholders of the fraudulent companies.
We can see from the basics of this fraud compensation package that all of its value will be derived from HCL stock. With this in mind, the most important question to ask about this fund is where will the HCL stock backing it come from? As Ginko Financial has recently announced the failure of its bond, I think we can reasonably assume that the fund's HCL stock will come from the 8,800,000 shares of HCL that were previously owned by Ginko.
As of this writing, the market valued HCL stock at L$0.75 per share, giving the fund a net asset value of around L$6,600,000. This is a pretty depressing amount of value for the fraud compensation fund, given that Ginko's fraud alone has a value of L$200,000,000. That is to say, if Ginko were the ONLY fraudulent company having its shares converted into this fund, each share of the fund would be worth about L$0.04 in theory. Given the very long list of other fraudulent companies that are also scheduled to have their shares converted into shares of this fund, I think that fraud victims can expect an asset value of around L$0.02 per share for the fund.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big believer in the fact that World Stock Exchange should do what it can to make amends for all of the fraud that it has brought upon the Second Life community. This fund structure, however, begs the question, why even bother? Creating a fund that only compensates the victims for 2% of the fraud that they have endured at World Stock Exchange is nothing more than rubbing salt in the wounds of the victims.
Besides the fact that this fund seems to be an insult to all victims of fraud at World Stock Exchange, offering them only a theoretical 2% compensation for the fraud they have endured, there is an even bigger problem: Perpetual dilution of value! I don't know about you, but I'm not fooled into thinking that fraud at World Stock Exchange is somehow being curbed by a tiny compensation fund that costs the exchange exactly NOTHING each time fraud is committed there.
Since we can take it as a given that the fraud will continue at World Stock Exchange, this means that MILLIONS MORE SHARES of this fund will be created after the commission of each fraud. However, Ginko is the only World Stock Exchange listed security owning any HCL shares to seize and add to the fund. Therefore, as time marches on, the value of an existing share in the fraud compensation fund will DROP dramatically due to the commission of new fraud and thus the creation of new shares in the fraud compensation fund. Would YOU buy shares in such a fund? I sure wouldn't, and I think it is reasonable to assume that nobody with any common sense would.
If World Stock Exchange is serious about compensating the Second Life community for all of the fraud that it has ushered in, it needs to do a lot more than what was announced here. I think that to even show good faith, Connell should contribute his 5 million shares of HCL to this fund, so it has a better starting point. In addition, 90% of all trading commissions collected by World Stock Exchange should be used to buy back shares of this fund via market order, at L$1.00 per share or less, as long as any shares exist for sale at or below L$1.00. This strategy assumes of course that each L$1.00 worth of fraud is worth one share of the fraud compensation fund, as presently seems to be the structure.
I think it is a joke for this guy to get rich off of the trading commissions we pay him to trade what he knows to most likely be fraudulent stocks, and then insult us with a fraud compensation fund that is structured in a manner that not only fails to compensate us for the fraud that we are victims of, but costs him NOTHING. Yep, I think the joke is on us, and Luke Connell is laughing all the way to the bank. The world stock exchange ticker symbol for this fund, WTF, seems highly appropriate to me: What The Fuck?!
If World Stock Exchange wants to posture in press releases about how it is doing something good for their customers, who they state made World Stock Exchange what it is today, and were the victims of fraud at World Stock Exchange in the process, they can SURELY do a lot better than what they've announced in the excerpt below. There seems to be no actual MONEY to be found anywhere in this fraud compensation scheme for the victims. In fact, it seems that all World Stock Exchange is doing here is converting a bunch of fraudulent stocks into a single, unified fraudulent stock, and posturing to the fraud victims about how this is somehow a blessing.
--- Begin WSE Quote ---
- THE KILLER APP OF VIRTUAL FINANCE NOT YET REVEALED BUT COMING SOON....
THE SECRET IS REVEALED!
Yes its true, it has always been part of the WSE's agenda to ensure that all WSE Traders whom we class as stakeholders would be indirectly protected as much as possible from the potential ethics based fraud and misconduct that would come from businesses listing on the WSE during the start-up and development phase which has been almost entirely unregulated environment in order to cultivate and encourage growth.
The Secret is out and the time has now come as we feel there is an improved regulatory environment and sufficient information available to WSE traders in order to help them make informed decisions when trading on the WSE.
World Stock Exchange Traders Fund (WTF) is a specially designed fund that holds shares in Hope Capital Ltd on behalf of all WSE account holders who have lost their virtual shares or bonds in delisted companies up to the 19th October 2007. All WSE account holders are stakeholders in the business.
Management alone did not make the WSE what it is today and it is through the participation of our customers that the WSE has become what it is today and what it will become in the future.
WSE account holders will have all their shares in any company that was delisted due to fraud or bankruptcy converted into shares in the World Stock Exchange Traders Fund (WTF).
The WSE Traders Fund will be allocated shares in Hope Capital Ltd on 23rd October 2007 and will begin actively trading on the WSE on the 24th October 2007.
CURRENT CONVERSIONS INCLUDE:
APT 1 - 3
PNK 1 - 1
IBM 1 - 1
MPR 1 - 1
PCL 1 - 1
PPC 1 - 1
RIN 1 - 1
SEX 1 - 1
TSF 1 - 10
WED 1 - 1
TLS 1 - 1
XAN 1 - 1
XDT 1 - 1
SBJ 1 - 1
TGC 1 - 1
PGI 1 - 3
AMD 1 - 0.5
CIG 1 - 1
--- End WSE Quote ---
Posted in Business, Community, Economy, Ginko Financial, Second Life, World Stock Exchange | 10 comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Shaun Altman
Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:38:00 GMT
Let me warn you up front: this is a bit of a rant. It isn't even a Second Life related rant. I hope that it is okay with all of you if I digress a little from time to time. :)
I snapped this picture in a grocery store parking lot a couple of hours ago. This is an all-too-common sight in parking lots across the country. There are cart return queues not even a TEN SECOND WALK from the parking spots in this photo, but these five people are apparently too important to bother using them.
I bet you're asking by now, "Is this seriously a blog post about SHOPPING CARTS?". Well, yes and no. :) More importantly, I'd like to drill down into the underlying social issue that is represented by the cart-litter in this photo: an attitude of entitlement.
What causes this attitude of entitlement amongst people? I would have liked to park in the spaces at the foreground of this photo. My inability to do so caused me to have to waste at least one minute of my life today; a minute that I can NEVER reclaim!
I'd be willing to wager that at least twenty other people who would have liked to park in one of these spaces wasted a minute right along with me before these carts were picked up. And how about the poor soul who's job it is to pick these carts up? I wonder how much productivity that person loses when he has to spend an extra 30 seconds per cart running around the parking lot picking these up. There's two minutes and thirty seconds of that poor person's day wasted JUST from the small amount of cart-litter in this lot that I could fit into a single picture frame.
So here are my questions: What makes these people so special? Why do they feel that they are entitled to waste 23.5 minutes of other peoples' lives, simply so they can leave a parking lot 20 seconds sooner? What gives them a right to make 22 peoples' day a little worse, just so they can shave 20 seconds off of their own? I'll bet that there are 1001 other examples of such a pervasive attitude of entitlement out there every day. This is just the one I happened to spot and photograph this afternoon. What examples can you think of?
In conclusion, I'd like to extend two great big middle fingers to the people who left these carts here, and to everyone else who does rude and inconsiderate things like this on a daily basis. NEWSFLASH! You are NOT entitled to waste the time and energy of countless others, simply to get your groceries home 20 seconds sooner. This is one, of no doubt a great many small examples, of how the world could be a slightly better place, if we were to all dedicate ONLY TWENTY SECONDS each day to considering the needs and desires of our fellow citizens.
Posted in etc, People, Stuff That Makes Me Angry | 14 comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Shaun Altman
Sun, 19 Aug 2007 09:34:04 GMT
Hey, thanks for visiting! I am the Second Life avatar known as Shaun Altman! :) A lot of people ask me questions in-world every day spanning a broad range of topics, and like most others, I have many interesting discussions in IM. I’ve always felt that a lot of these dialogs could be of benefit or just of interest to the broader community, so I’ve decided to start a blog where we can all come together and explore some of the current events in Second Life.
The content here will probably end up being pretty varied. In the near-term, I’d like to publish some of my thoughts on the World Stock Exchange, the current Ginko Financial situation and the broader Second Life economy in general. I’d also like to write a bit about what I’m up to in Second Life, the things I enjoy doing in-world and the interesting people that I meet. I’m currently tossing around the idea of authoring a series of LSL scripting guides as well, but I’m not sure if a blog is the best format for those. Let me know if you think such guides would be useful to you, and if so, how to best provide access to them via this site.
Above all else, what I’d like to accomplish here is to foster an open and welcoming environment for discussion and debate, so please don’t be shy with your comments. Its okay if you don’t agree with me, and its fine if discussions become a little heated sometimes too. I only ask that you keep your submissions clean and free of personal attacks.
If there’s anything you’d like to see more (or less) of on this blog, please let me know via blog comment or in-world IM. Second Life is all about ideas, so lets keep them flowing! Thanks again for visiting my blog! I hope that you will enjoy it!
Posted in etc, Second Life | 6 comments | no trackbacks
