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(July 12, 2006) The British Columbia Securities Commission has issued a notice of hearing against three men, including one already well-known in regulatory circles, alleging they violated the Securities Act between May and November 2002, by operating a Vancouver based phone room to encourage and pressure people to purchase the securities of issuers who billed for the service.

Richard Norman Jeffs, Robert Leigh Jeffs and Francis Jason Dean Biller are accused of trading securities without proper registration, engaging in cold calling and other unfair practices. The allegations have not been proven and a date for the hearing has not been set.

Biller is accused of organizing and managing the phone room, hiring callers and drafting caller scripts. He is already under a 10-year ban from engaging in investor relations activities, ordered by the BCSC in February 2000.

Biller was also involved in the infamous Eron Mortgage scam in the late 1990s, soliciting investments in the group’s notes and mortgages using a variety of marketing techniques, material misrepresentations with respect to the nature and level of risk associated with Eron investments and the manner in which investors’ funds were being invested.

By the fall of 1997, Eron had raised $240 million. The company’s bankruptcy trustee recovered only about 18 cents on every dollar. Biller pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and one count of misappropriating funds and was sentenced to three years in prison last year.

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Hedge fund performance drops

(July 12, 2006) Global equity markets were down last month and hedge fund returns followed suit, dropping for the second month in a row in June. Performance measured by the Barclay Hedge Fund Index shows a slide of 0.32% during the month, following a 1.82% drop in May.

“Directional equity strategies were the hardest hit,” says Sol Waksman, founder and president of the Barclay Group. “But we would expect equity short bias and most arbitrage strategies did well.”

Although the losses were less widespread during the month — 60% of funds reported losses in June, down from 70% in May — 13 of Barclay’s 18 hedge fund indexes lost money. The Emerging Markets Index dropped 1.16%, Equity Long Bias fell 0.96% and Technology fell 0.81%. Equity Market Neutral fund gained 1.19% in June, Equity Short Bias rose 0.92% and the Merger Arbitrage Index gained 0.67%.

The company says despite two months of losses, the Barclay Hedge Fund Index is still up 5.72% for the first six months of the year. The strongest performing sectors year to date include the Merger Arbitrage Index, up 7.92%, Event Driven, up 7.84% and Multi-Strategy funds, up 7.32%. The weakest performer year to date is the Pacific Rim Equities Index, which lost 1.72%.

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Boomers fall behind their parents in saving for retirement

(July 12, 2006) A new BMO Financial Group study reveals that 73% of boomers are still living with debt, only 28% say they have savings and investments of $100,000 or more, and nearly one in five have no savings at all.

Even though conventional wisdom suggests the average Canadian should plan to fund at least 20 years of retirement, juggling the needs of parents and children with their own retirement needs is a major concern for boomers, the study suggests.

Three in five Canadian boomers with children over the age of 18 are still providing some kind of financial support to their kids, and one quarter of those whose parents are still alive have one ore more elderly parents that need their assistance on a regular basis. Along with this, only 28% of respondents say they are confident they will be financially secure in old age compared to 41% of those under 40 years of age and 47% who are 60 years of age and older.

One-third of boomers believe their standard of living is likely to drop in retirement. Two-thirds say they are at least somewhat willing to sell their assets to fund retirement but only one third intends to use this strategy.

Pre-boomers on the other hand and those over age 60 are far more confident about their financial future. Half of those surveyed say they feel very confident about their financial security. BMO says this may be because older Canadians’ finances tend to be in order — 82% have paid off their mortgages, 85% have a will and almost half have no debt.

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Berkshire wins consumers choice award

(July 12, 2006) Berkshire Investment Group has been awarded the Gold Consumers’ Choice 2006 award (CCA) for business excellence in the category of Financial Planning Consultants in the Greater Toronto Area. At the annual CCA Gala ceremony held in Mississauga, Ontario, Geoffrey Charlton, Berkshire’s executive vice-president and Frank Laferriere, chief financial officer and chief operating officer, thanked the group, calling the firm “the GTA’s best kept secret.”

“We are proud to have such a professional, dedicated team of financial planning consultants representing Berkshire Investment Group,” Charlton said. The award is based on an independent telephone survey conducted in March 2006, by Léger Marketing. Respondents selected the company based on aspects such as value and service from five other available financial institutions.

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