Overseas property developer EcoHouse has again maintained it is not
in breach of any agreements with its investors, and described yesterday
morning’s report it has been placed on the Investor Watch List by the
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as “not news”.
In an email statement to PropertyGuru received
on Monday evening, Chief Operations Officer for EcoHouse Deen Bissessar
(pictured) said his company, which has sold social housing property
investments promising returns of as much as 20 percent in 12 months in
Northeast Brazil, was first alerted to this [placement on the MAS
Investor Watch List] back in April 2014.
He said: “At the time we looked into the matter and determined this is/was not an injunction against our continued business.”
Bissessar
added that the MAS website describes the nature of the list as follows:
"The Investor Alert List provides a listing of unregulated persons who,
based on information received by MAS, may have been wrongly perceived
as being licensed or authorised by MAS."
He added: “The list is
simply intended to correct any perception that MAS has licensed or
authorised the companies listed. It does not mean that MAS has in fact
decided that the company needs to be licensed or regulated by MAS;
and/or that it is not licensed or regulated as required by law.
“What it means is that some people have told MAS that they thought we were regulated MAS but in fact that is not true.
“I
personally do not know why anyone would think that we are covered by
the MAS since we have never made any such representations. We have
always maintained that we are a real estate developer with international
sales operations.”
He added that EcoHouse has not been formally
contacted by MAS, nor does it believe the company has violated any rules
in its marketing and promotions.
“We are still a real estate developer and as such plan on bringing our projects to their completion,” he added.
Referring
to planned investors meetings this week, Bissesar said: “Despite the
upcoming investor meetings and the opinions that will be shared there,
we are still contractually sound with our investors. We maintain that we
are not in breach of any agreement with our investors.
“In the
world of real estate development construction delays are a common
occurrence, while we have made efforts to minimise such delays they are
often and inevitable part of the industry.
“Many other brand name
international real estate developments suffer delays significantly
longer than what clients are currently experiencing with us, and in
addition, none of their clients are ever offered any sort of delay
compensation as we have offered to our clients.
“We are doing the
best we can to remedy the situation in the shortest possible time
frames and are still very much continuing the construction of our
projects, despite what you might hear to the contrary, with the ultimate
view that all of our clients will be made whole and will look back on
their EcoHouse venture as a truly profitable one,” he concluded.
EcoHouse
was widely reported as being
the best-selliing overseas property investment in Singapore during 2012,
and is thought to have more than 800 individual Singaporean investors,
along with other investors from Southeast Asia and around the world.As
well as an office at Suntec the company extended its Asian operations to
Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong.
In February 2013 PropertyGuru
reported how the company collected more than S$30 million in
investments from Singaporeans for its social housing investments in just
48 hours at its Suntec office opening event.
Andrew Batt, International Group Editor of PropertyGuru Group, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email andrew@propertyguru.com.sg
Other EcoHouse stories published by PropertyGuru:
July 7 2014: EcoHouse on MAS Watch List
June 25, 2014: EcoHouse – we will deliver
January 24, 2014: EcoHouse "back on track"
January 9, 2014: EcoHouse plays catch-up, stops selling in Singapore
November 13, 2013: EcoHouse frustrations start to surface
June 10, 2013: EcoHouse refutes get rick quick claims
February 13, 2013 ; EcoHouse attracts S$30m in two days
If you have any comments or observations for publication about your experiences with investing in EcoHouse please email andrew@propertyguru.com.sg