High returns investment, too good to be true?



Perfume for me



Last week I received an invitation via phone to attend an investment talk. OK, I must rephrase the sentence as the phone call did not indicate anything about investment at all. I was told that I was selected to attend a fragrance launch by a company called APS. The caller assured me that no purchases are needed, finger food would be provided and at the end of the event, I would be given a bottle of perfume worth $90 which is supposed to be limited edition. The event would talk about the use of expensive Oud oil in producing this fragrance and it was held at a six-star hotel. Sounded like a genuine event isn’t it? So I agreed and bought along a friend to attend over the weekend.

Upon reaching the hotel ballroom, at the registration counter we were told that a sales person would be assigned to us and it would take about one and a half hour to go through the product presentation. Sounds familiar? I wasn’t happy that I was “lured” to attend an investment talk. I asked my friend if she’s keen otherwise we could just go shopping and forget about the perfume. My friend says:”Let’s see what they have to say”. I was more concerned of being forcefully locked in until I agree to invest like what happened to another friend of mine some years ago. She attended a time share investment talk and decided to leave after half an hour. They refused to let her go and had few big size guys surrounded her. (She refused to give in and they eventually let her to go).

Anyway, we had a quick bite and coffee and were ushered in by a friendly sales person. The sales person (let’s address her as M) started by explaining that many high end perfume manufacturers use Oud oil in their perfume. Oud oil, extracted from Agarwood (from Aquilaria trees) is very expensive and is in high demand by the Arab countries and the fragrance industries. These trees are heavily harvested and are near extinction. APC (the parent company of APS) decided to grow these trees and work with plantation owners in Thailand, India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

How does this investment work? We were told we are investing in the trees (we literally own the trees) in Thailand. We don’t get the returns until 6-7 years later as this is the time it takes for the trees to grow, mature, harvested and sold in the market. The trading price of Oud oil is very high, ranging from $600-$1200. M stressed that APS is not regulated by MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore); “bell ringing in my mind”. APS was set up here in late 2009. (I was thinking: the first batch of investors has yet to collect their investment returns). We were also told that they would fly us into Thailand plantation to view our trees which have tag numbers that would be shown in the CITES certificates as well. These were shown in the PowerPoint slides, pictures of “smiley and happy investors” standing beside their trees. No brochures were given to us to take home. My friend asked a simple question:”How many tons of trees are harvested yearly?” M and a product person could not give an answer and evaded the question saying something like “they don’t measure by tons” and that the oil produced per tree is measured in Tola. I asked what happen in the event that the trees (in Thailand) were destroyed by natural disasters. M said they would give us the exact number of trees in their Sri Lanka plantation (you believe?). We were also informed that usually the minimum amount to invest is $100,000. But they also realize that many have other financial commitments and could not part with such a large sum of money. So they allow the minimum sum to be $30,000. We asked her to email us more information. (Till now, didn’t receive any).

After we left the premise, my friend asked me:”What do you think?” I told her although I’m not a financial person, there are many questions came to my mind:

1) If this is such a lucrative investment, why didn’t the company first approach venture capitalists?

2) Since they know Oud oil is in high demand in the Arab countries, why didn’t they approach those wealthy Arabians?

3) There are many business tycoons in U.S. like Donald Trump and Warren Buffet (to name a couple) they could also approach.

4) How about tycoons in Asia: Lee Ka Shing, Cecil Chao in Hong Kong?

5) Wouldn’t our GICs, town councils, the millionaires here be interested too?

6) Why approach small time retail investors like us who have way less wealth compared to the tycoons and businessmen?

My friend replied:”My thoughts exactly. No reports are shown to us except for the slides presentation and expect us to part with our money. Remember the Sunshine Empire saga?”

Finally solved the Rubik's cube

A couple of years ago, I bought a 3x3 Rubik’s cube. Thinking I could solve it easily but after a few tries, I gave up. Lately while I was clearing away some junks in my drawer, I saw the Rubik’s cube. It was lying at a corner and I swear I could literally hear it said:”solve me, solve me!”

So I decided and was determined to learn how to solve this cube. Where is the best place to gain knowledge without having to pay any fee? Of course it’s the internet.

I searched ‘Rubik’s cube tutorial’ in YouTube and voila, a list of people sharing their videos on solving the cube came up. So I randomly picked out one video by the name of RobH0629 who has step-by-step tutorials to guide me. (He has seven videos altogether, speaks clearly and he is brilliant).

I watched all his videos, replayed them, jolted down notes and worked the cube according to his tutorials. The last couple of videos, he showed us the different sets of algorithm to solve the cube. I knew it has to do with maths!

After many hours (eight, to be exact), I had finally solved the Rubik’s cube. I felt so satisfied and my self esteem boosted up to the next level. I thought I should share this ‘accomplishment’ with my family. But in turn I was asked:”Hmm… Are you very bored? Don’t you have hot dates to go to?”

Well, I will not let those words dampen my spirit. My next challenge would be to memorize the steps and solve the cube again.

Cool Notification from FL Commando

Recently, I downloaded an Android game, FL Commando. When it detected that I have not been playing for a few days, it sent me a notification: Commando, report for duty immediately!

Isn’t it cool?

Movies Review

(1) Men in Black 3 (3D)
 

Last Friday I went to the cinema to watch Men in Black 3. The ticket was free due to that a bank has offered free tickets to its corporate clients. It also provided free popcorns and a can of coke (so thoughtful).

It’s been a while since I stepped into a cinema and it’s the first time I got to watch a movie in 3D. (Yes, first time…). Hence, I was rather excited.

The movie is about Agent J (Will Smith), in order to save his partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) and the earth, must travel back in time to 1969 to prevent an alien criminal from killing the young Agent K (Josh Brolin).

It’s very entertaining - the lines are funny; the aliens are ugly and there’s an unexpected scenerio at the end that may bring tears to your eyes.

As for the 3D effect, I saw the depth perception between the foreground and the background. However, I feel that this makes the background look somewhat unreal. And oh the 3D glasses, not too comfortable.

Check out the official site here: http://www.meninblack.com/

 

(2) Mirror Mirror (2012)

I watched Mirror Mirror on the internet (thank goodness I didn’t pay to watch in the cinema).

Mirror Mirror is an adaption of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It’s about an evil queen (Julia Roberts) who seized control of her husband’s kingdom right after his disappearance. The dwarfs taught Snow White (Lily Collins) to fight when she’s hiding in the forest. She ultimately saved the dwarfs and the prince (Armie Hammer). The poisoned apple was only offered to Snow White at her wedding to the prince by the queen who has lost her power. Oh, and the dwarfs wore stilts. Perhaps the director is trying to break away from the traditional story here.

 

At the end of the movie, Snow White performed a Bollywood song and dance. Seriously, a Bollywood dance for a Snow White movie? A check with the cast and crew list at the end explained it – an Indian director, Tarsem Singh. I wonder if the movie were directed by China’s Zhang Yimou, would he end it with a Chinese song and dance.

 

Check out the official site here: http://mirrormirrorfilm.com/#/home

How bad is your boss?

After reading blogger Gintai’s “How to nurture your boss”, I feel inspired to write about bad bosses. Gintai has also encouraged me to blog again and hence I take a break from my project to do so.

The following are some examples of bad bosses and when should one quit the job. Please feel free to share your personal experiences too.

1) The boss has PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) everyday. She communicates with her staff by yelling.

2) The boss dares not make decisions nor takes responsibilities and has the clueless idea all the time; always asking “what do you think?”

3) The boss gets mad when a staff resigns; he gets someone to occupy the staff’s work station while the latter was serving his remaining weeks in the company, leaving the staff to find elsewhere to sit in the office.

4) The boss asked the staff to jump out of the window when the latter could not meet his sales targets.

5) The boss micro-manages his staff; warning the staff when they’re late for five minutes (when they had worked late till 2am the previous night). But when his own boss gets out of town, he’ll go for long lunches including golf-playing.

6) The boss is always abusive to his/her staff often calling them stupid.

7) The boss always send his/her staff to run personal errands like collecting laundry, going to the banks, etc., when the boss himself/herself is also the employee of the company.

8) The bosses sent a team of staff to their house over the weekend to decorate because it was their father’s birthday. The staff were not paid nor invited to stay to enjoy the party and food.

9) The sales boss (with no sales experience at all) accusing the staff of pretending to make sales calls (because he saw the staff was not talking when in actual fact, the line on the other side was ringing and no one had come to pick up yet).

10) Having a scheming and vicious boss is no easy life in the work place, especially in sales environment where sales persons’ income is based on commission for closed sales. A good boss would define/assign clear sales territories to the staff. A bad boss would act blur when your coworker starts to contact the companies that were supposed to be your sales accounts. This would create “bad blood” among coworkers.

When does one decide to “divorce” his/her boss (to call it quit)?

1) When you bring your emotional package home; throwing temple toward your loved ones; being impatient to them; easily agitated over the most minor things.

2) When you starting doubting your own intelligence; hearing voices in your head repeating what your abusive boss has been telling you “You are so stupid.”

3) When you start falling sick frequently and develop psoriasis, eczema, gastric, etc., which are stress related. This is your body signaling, telling you that your immunity is going down.

4) When your boss requires you to work onsite on Sundays (which both of you are responsible for the project) but he will not show up because he needs to spend time with his family.

5) When you start to doubt your existence in this world. (Dude, this is seriously dangerous).

The above are tell tale signs that you should seriously consider resigning, for the interests of you and your loved ones.