Bye Bye Tokyo, Hello Bangkok

Here is the farewell letter that Richard Cayne sent to his clients before moving away to Bangkok:

I would like to thank you for patronizing our services over the past 10 years. This notice serves as an announcement that Meyer Asset Management Ltd has closed operations in Japan due to several regulatory changes with the Japanese Financial Services Agency. Meyer Asset Management Ltd has been registered as a “licensed investment advisory agency” in Japan under the jurisdiction from the Kanto Local Finance Bureau as a Financial Supervisory Authority (hereafter the FSA).

Over the past 10 years we have been pioneers in advising clients on a range of over 200 top global fund companies each offering several lines of investment products and therefore Meyer wanting to keep a very open architecture advisory business where we can genuinely help advise our client to create portfolios of investments from the very best of investments around the globe have decided in an effort to be completely compliant with local laws and regulations cannot do this business in Japan. 

In order for a firm in Japan to introduce overseas products to Japanese residents the introducing firm must be appropriately licensed and such products would have to be registered with the Financial services Agency and therefore to offer such a broad range of products would be impractical and cost prohibitive to register each one. In addition to which a securities or advisory firm in Japan is subject to information requests by the FSA or Japanese tax bureau at any time and would be required to release investors confidential information on demand.

Therefore due to client driven demand for more confidentiality and even wider range of services and products from our advisory service it has been decided to shut the Japan operations and clients will be serviced by Meyer International offices from Bangkok, Thailand operations center. We are pleased to advise that being based in Bangkok will give us the flexibility and strategic positioning to be very central to our clients all over Asia and allow us to offer clients even more global investment choices with a much higher degree of confidentiality. 

In order to achieve ones financial objectives, investors need professional advice and need to receive support from an independent position at all times. We believe that having choices from a wide variety of investments products from all over the world in order to achieve such financial objectives is paramount.

Our consultants will explain to you regarding future business plans should you have any questions.

Thank you very much for your continuous support and understanding.

Sincerely yours,

Richard M. Cayne
Managing Director
Meyer Asset Management Ltd

And here is a bit of reading between the lines about what the message might really mean:

So, according to Cayne, registering investment vehicles with the FSA in Japan is "impractical" (translation: not subject to approval) and "cost prohibitive" (for the business offering them). And the FSA can gather private details about clients through their investment broker (translation: the FSA can investigate to see if the broker is complying with Japanese law). Finally, Cayne suggests Thailand is more "confidential" than Japan (translation: the Japanese authorities will be more likely to investigate dodgy businesses than Than authorities). Finally, a "consultant" will not contact you because there are no consultants. The 'consultant" will likely to be Cayne or a flavor-of-the-month associate. 

Let the buyer beware.

Wait! There's more! Check it out:

Looks like the parasite ran away from Japan when the authorities decided to enforce regulation. They really don't like being registered and licenced do they? Too difficult to stitch up the unsuspecting punters with their useless managed funds and assorted ponzi scams.
What's the next best location - Thailand of course! Join the rest of the unlicenced unregulated and unscrupulous financial conmen preying on gullible expats.
Is it just a coincidence or do all conmen hide behind the sham of supposedly keeping their investors confidential information, only as a pretext to hide their own dodgy dealing?

If it sounds too good to be true...

Richard Cayne giving people advice on how not to get ripped off! Oh, what priceless irony!

http://richardcayne.net/if-it-sounds-too-good-to-be-true-it-may-be-a-ponzi-scheme/

According to the article, here are the warning signs that investors need to be aware of:

High returns on investments with seemingly no risk. Even under normal conditions, a yield over 5% to 8% may seem incredible. To get 200%, with a guarantee, is most likely a Ponzi scheme.

This is food for thought - especially considering that Richard Cayne told me that Royal Siam Trust was such a good investment that I could "double or even triple" my money. Your words, Mr. Cayne, not mine.

• Regulations are often the bane of investors, but they are there for your protection. If you deal with an unregistered or unlicensed dealer or investment, there’s no way for you to confirm their legitimacy, and you’ll definitely have less recourse when things go wrong.

It's kind of like doing business with an investment advisor in Japan who abruptly shuts down operations there and runs moves away to Bangkok, Thailand after getting sanctioned by the competent  authorities at the FSA. It's definitely true that Royal Siam Trust investors have no recourse whatsoever now that the guy who sold it to them is living in Thailand. I guess their only "recourse" now is to have faith that the same person who got them into this mess will somehow get them out of it.

• You get great looking statements showing how your investment has grown, but you can’t find out exactly how this is happening and can’t get your hands on that money easily. It’s still your money, so you should be able to track your funds, and, if necessary, withdraw from or close your account depending on the nature of the investment and asset class.

Whatever happened to the www.royalsiamtrust.com website? And didn't Richard Cayne tell his clients that they could resell their "units" in Royal Siam Trust early if need be?

Hmm. Something seems fishy here.

"It's their plan for your money, so assume deception"

I contend that the only reason an advisor would recommend such an expensive and inflexible investment plan is to earn a fat commission payment, and therefore the payment of a large commission to an advisor is akin to bribery. 

I couldn't agree more with the above statement. Did Richard Cayne really have his clients' best interests at heart when he recommended lousy investment products such as Zurich International Life?

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/02/26/voices/its-their-plan-for-your-money-so-assume-deception/#.WqEjVZNuZIY

Here's a review from a satisfied (?) Cayne client:

https://meyer-international.pissedconsumer.com/scammed-by-richard-cayne-20150110580676.html

Blood In Bangkok?

I would like to make one thing perfectly clear: I have nothing whatsoever to do with this Gregory Pitt character and he had nothing to do with this blog. I don't think much of him and I am certainly not helping him to go "hammer and tongs" at Richard Cayne. I'm on the side of the investors and no one else.

The original story can be found here: http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2015/01/financial-adviser-and-law-firm-manager.html

FINANCIAL ADVISER AND LAW FIRM MANAGER AT HAMMER AND TONGS

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

THERE WILL BE BLOOD IN BANGKOK!

What happens when you put a Bangkok financial advisor together with the foreign managing director of a typical foreign controlled local law firm in Thailand and put them into the Thai property business?

Graham Macdonald MBE and Greg Pitt

Well almost certainly it seems a lot of very unhappy investors and potential suicides.
But the second answer is that they both are going to fall out over cash – and when they do they will create anonymous sites on the internet, often through Google blogger, and go at each other hammer and tongs.

Such is the case with Gregory John Pitt, Managing Director of Mackenzie Smith Law firm and a Canadian financial advisor Richard Cayne, a Canadian from Montreal and boss of Meyer Asset Management, formerly of Tokyo.

Both were involved in a project with a company called ‘Royal Siam Trust’ based in St. Lucia. They were allegedly investing in land in Koh Chang in Thailand’s Trat Province hoping to make a killing on the rise of land prices. ‘The Royal Siam Trust’ website has been down for some time.

The Mackenzie Smith Law site has got a virus and Greg Pitt a former stalwart of the British Chamber of Commerce in Thailand seems to have dropped out of the social circuit in Pattaya where he appears to spend most of his time.

That's maybe because there are claims on the internet that he has been jailed for 18 years.

I do not believe for a second that he is in jail. Nobody with cash goes straight to jail in Thailand. They go to appeal and the Supreme Court first – which can take at least a decade.

Nevertheless there is a long narrative headed ‘A Gavel Falls In Paradise’ written by a ‘journalist’ called Elliott Rosenthal on Pitt’s trial. Rosenthal claims to be the Asia Correspondent At Large for a publication called Money and Investing Weekly – but there is no internet footprint for either him or the magazine – so I guess it won’t be out next week.

The article is on a website called whitesandsbeach.com Perusal of the site shows it has been set up to attack Pitt.

Richard Cayne is all over the net (articles in his favour) and he has a Drew Noyesque flavor about himself. Once you have read all the sun shines out of his posterior stuff and get to the nitty gritty you get a totally different picture.

‘Royal Siam Trust’ was supposedly investing in White Sands Beach on the island of Koh Chang, down in Trat. Pitt ,  a former pupil of Millfield School, was the CEO of the Royal Siam Trust while I understand Cayne was also a director and who put his clients’ funds in it (or not as the case may be).

A former marketing manager for Mackenzie Law is a man called Richard Prouse.

Alan Hall and Richard Prouse

Could this be the same Richard Prouse who deputized for #AlanHall the former Chiang Mai Expats Club founding member and boss of PFM International, an IFA, who skipped Thailand last year leaving a lot of aggrieved clients?

Yes it is.  Here they are together.

#RichardProuse, a former pupil of Norwood School, South London, famously gave an interview to the Chiang Mai City News in northern Thailand, claiming the whole world was against him - including his wife - showing the reporter his scars.

Now anyone who knows anything about White Sands Beach also knows that little happens on the island of Koh Chang, once designated in the era of Thaksin Shinawatra as a place of development for more well off tourists, knows also that little happens on the island without the involvement of a major island family – just like Koh Tao, Koh Phangan and Koh Samui in the south.


Most of the initial clients were from Tokyo which both men vacated to come to Thailand – #RichardCayne leaving with some very bad blood.

As for #GregPitt - I’m guessing that being an IFA and also the MD of a law firm in Thailand is the ultimate ticket. You can sue your investors under the Computer Crime Act if they insult you for losing their money.

Footnote: #AlanHall formerly of PFM International, which sold the now crashed LM Managed Performance Fund to Clients among others is now up and running with a company called Aztec Gas Limited not to be confused with Aztec Oil and Gas of Houston, Texas.


Anyway the links are out there. Enjoy or weep.

I would now like to draw your attention to an internet article that appears to have been written by Richard Cayne himself.

 http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/finance/richard-meyer-cayne-credibility-of-an-offshore-financial-consultant-in-japan.html

Go ahead and have a look at it. Don't worry - this blog will still be here when you get back....

Okay, so the gist of the above article is that Meyer Asset Management had slipped through the cracks but finally received a completely routine (but overdue) inspection from the regulators? Nothing to worry about, right?

Now let's look at another article that I found online:  http://www.whitecase.com/articles-09092010/#.VE8UOYuUdCc

The "Penalty Imposed" section on page 2 of the article is particularly noteworthy. Although the article written by Richard Cayne seems to lightheartedly suggest that Meyer Asset Management received a small "tap on the wrist" kind of punishment from the regulators after a "routine inspection," the White & Case article states that in actuality Meyer Asset Management was ordered to suspend its business activities for 90 days!

A three-month suspension of business activities is a serious matter indeed and cannot be explained away by gobbledygook such as "just because you have a drivers license doesn’t mean you are allowed to drive 150 mph." I think a more apt analogy would be that of a restaurant that had failed a health inspection and was ordered not to serve any food for three months. Would you want to have lunch at a place like that?

It seems that just as eating at unsanitary restaurants can represent a health risk, doing business with Meyer Asset Management can be detrimental to one's financial health as well. Just ask the people who have invested thousands of dollars in Royal Siam Trust landbanking (introduced/sold by Richard Cayne and/or Meyer Asset Management).

Here are two more documents about Royal Siam Trust Company.

Notice that the first one is dated 11 April 2012 and it clearly states in two places that Richard Cayne is indeed the Director of Royal Siam Trust Company Limited. The banking information on the paper is also correct - investors did send their money to the Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong, account number 368-107-6186-2. If Richard Cayne would like to provide an explanation for this, I would be all ears. Let me guess....a fake document planted by the real Director? Possible, yes. Likely, no.

The second document is a little older (dated May 27, 2004) and shows that Royal Siam Trust has two directors, Richard Cayne and Gregory Pitt. How could Richard Cayne not know that something was wrong with this investment when he was one of the Directors of the company? I cannot help but conclude that one (or both?) of these men has been dishonest about this investment.

Surely, the records from the bank in Hong Kong will indicate whether or not the funds are still there and, if not, where they have gone.

Have a look at this document. You can clearly see that Royal Siam Trust Company was established in St. Lucia on May 27, 2004.  Isn't this confusing? According to Richard Cayne's sales pitch, Royal Siam Trust company has a history dating back to 1955. That leaves exactly 49 years unaccounted for. Richard Cayne has yet to offer any explanation whatsoever for this discrepancy and I don't expect him to either. What can he possibly say other than "I wasn't telling the truth about Royal Siam Trust when I sold it?"