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Apologies missed the links from the above piece
Profitable Group Chief Executive quote.
http://asiancorrespondent.com/24688/question-marks-over-newcastle-uniteds-profitable-suitor/
Wall Street Journal Piece on UK Land Banking
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120321-708757.html
ReplySee Wall Street journal piece below on UK land banking. It would appear the FSA is getting teeth. Its probably worth noting that the two Singapore companies offering land banking plots (Profitable Plots and Jardin Smith) do not operate in the UK and are not regulated by the UK FSA . S$60M in fines might be a good reason why !
Profitable Group Chief Executive said in 2009
“We don’t take UK business,” he said. “The business regulations in the UK and the manner in which the UK is structured are not conducive to doing business – it’s easier to do business elsewhere.”
LONDON (Dow Jones)–The U.K. Financial Services Authority on Wednesday said it had obtained a GBP32 million High Court judgment against James Kenneth Maynard, Countrywide Land Holdings Ltd. and Plateau Development & Land Ltd. in its ongoing crackdown on land-bank schemes that falsely promise outsized returns to investors on undeveloped land.
Maynard, who was also banned for life from selling land for business purposes in the U.K., was ordered to pay GBP31,896,194 to the FSA, while Plateau, now in liquidation, was instructed to pay GBP918,975. A bankruptcy order was also made against Maynard, who the FSA said it believes is living in Northern Cyprus.
Wasmin Minhas, the director of Plateau, has been ordered to pay GBP75,000 to the regulator.
Plateau sprung up after the FSA had already obtained injunctions against Maynard and Countrywide in August 2010, freezing assets and preventing them from selling more land to investors, it said. The FSA said it subsequently discovered that Plateau had been set up to continue the business and, in December 2010, secured a similar injunction against it.
Land-banking companies buy land and divide it into smaller parcels that are then sold to investors. The practice is legal but must be authorized by the FSA if the seller also serves as manager on the investment, making it a “collective investment scheme
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