Glasgow investors may get money back before yearend

The Securities and Exchange Commission said investors of Glasgow Credit and Collection Services Inc. may get their money back before December this year.

Tomas Syquia, head of the SEC’s compliance and enforcement department, said: "Before December, we expect to give it. We’re just fixing the payment scheme. The priority is to return the money."

Glasgow investors are expected to receive 79 percent of their principal investments back, slightly higher than the earlier announced figure of 67 to 68 percent.

This as the SEC found four more bank accounts of Glasgow, bringing the total funds available for distribution to the public to P800 million from only P600 million.

The funds will be shared equally by investors, pro-rated against their original investments.

The SEC wanted to give back the money as soon as possible but there were still questions on how to distribute the funds to Glasgow’s over 9,000 investors and how to handle the amount of disputed claims.

According to the CED, the validated claims or those representing the amount invested in Glasgow amounted to P893 million.

CED said there were some 625 investors who claimed that they invested around P141.39 million but their names were not on the list of investors submitted to the SEC by Glasgow.

There were also 1,168 individuals and groups in the Glasgow list who supposedly had a net investment of some P126.8 million but they too were not on the list of investors that filed claims with the SEC.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, a member of the AMLC, said the SEC would have to ensure that only legitimate owners get their money back.

During its first four months of operations, Glasgow’s total collections reached P1.16 billion from 9,121 individuals and corporations.

SEC records show that Glasgow’s shareholders are Manuel Roldan Jr., Radicion Baldia, Jenilyn Condes, Jonathan Condes, and Roldan Estacio.

The SEC is now preparing a criminal complaint against Glasgow for selling shares to the public without prior registration with the Commission.

It is also preparing to institute revocation proceedings against Glasgow to prevent the company from further defrauding the public.

Glasgow was issued a cease-and-desist order by the SEC for failing to offer securities to the public without license from the SEC in violation of the Securities Regulation Code (SRC).

Based on SEC’s investigation, Glasgow has been promising investors monthly interest of 15 percent for a minimum placement of P50,000 for six months plus the return of their investment at the end of the six-month period. Investments of less than P50,000 were promised the same terms and conditions with a slightly lower interest rate of 10 percent a month for the same period.

Upon signing of the contract, Glasgow would issue seven post-dated checks to investors covering the six monthly interest payments and the principal.