Investors urged to file class suit against Mateo Group

The Securities and Exchange Commission has advised investors of the Mateo Management Group or MMG International Holdings Co. Ltd. to group themselves and file a class suit against the responsible officers of the pseudo-investment firm.

By doing so, Thomas Syquia, head of the SEC’s Compliance and Enforcement Department, said investors can have the assets of MMG attached to answer for whatever losses they have incurred.

Syquia said that filing a class suit will ensure an airtight case against the responsible officers of the MMG.

The Mateos have over 100 businesses ranging from gasoline service to real estate development.

They also have investments in restaurants (Spectrumzone), cemeteries (St. Mattew‘s Memorial Garden and Calatagan Memorial Cemetery), hotels (MMG Hotel), appliance store (Compact Appliance Store), rural bank (Rural Bank of Lipa), skin care services and beauty consultancy (Lady-E Salon and Syarikat Roslinah), pawnshop (MMG Pawnshop), cinema complex and department store (MMG Mall), and golfcourse and waterfront facilities (Iloilo Waterfront & Yacht Club).

The Mateos are also engaged in financial services, construction, shipping, trading, motorcycle sales, air charter services, and film and TV production.

Apart from this, the Mateos have a 24-hour convenience store, computer school, purified drinking water firm, travel agency, maternity hospital , and medical clinic, and a promotion and advertising firm.

To prevent MMG from further defrauding the public, the SEC had denied the company’s plan to regularize its operations by registering P30 million worth of investment contracts.

The SEC’s corporation and finance department said MMG provided inaccurate, incomplete and misleading information in its registration statement. In justifying its move, the SEC cited Section 13.1 of the Securities Regulation Code, which provides that the Commission may reject a registration statement and refuse registration of security.

According to the SEC, MMG does not have a clear idea on what it is going to offer to the public since it classifies investment contracts as non-negotiable and non-assignable when in fact these securities are expected to be endorsed or transferred from one person to another in an unlimited number.

MMG would have used proceeds from the sale of investment contracts to finance existing business operations and for additional working capital requirements of the company’s subsidiaries and affiliates.

Formerly known as Mateo Management Group Holdings Co., MMG was issued a cease and desist order on April 1, 2002 for selling shares without prior registration with the SEC in violation of the Securities Regulation Code. The firm’s motion to lift the CDO was denied by the SEC on Aprril 18, virtually making the order permanent.

The company, whose head office is located at the Madrigal Business Park in Ayala, Alabang, offers an annual interest rate of 36 percent for a minimum investment of P50,000.

Despite the existing CDO, MMG reportedly continued to accept investments from the public, most of them located in Cavite, Ayala Alabang, Bacolod, Baguio, Batangas, Bulacan, Cagayan de Oro, Cainta, Rizal, Dagupan, Pampanga, Davao, Iloilo, Las Piñas, and Albay.

MMG has also reportedly gypped investors from San Diego, California USA, Hong Kong, and Brunei.

The Department of Justice has already issued a hold-departure order against the owners and officers of MMG to hold them accountable for all the losses incurred by aggrieved investors.

The hold-departure order will prevent the directors and incorporators off MMG from fleeing the country and ignoring claims filed against them by around 20,000 investors.