Friends in the right places part 6

Alan is at the table looking through the folders. There are lots of Financial Times newspapers. Del and Mike are also at the table. Cassandra and Rodney are sitting on the sofa, reading.

Alan:      This is an ingenious bit of research Mike, you must have a talent!

Mike:      Not really, I just spotted an ad in the Yellow Pages.

Alan:      I don’t follow you.

Mike:      Private Detective. I hired him when The Blacks were getting a bit heavy.

Alan:      Well, whatever you paid him, it’s money well spent, this is red-hot information.

Del:         What’s it all about then?

Alan:      Well, with the exception of the brewery, everything that Roy Stater bought into…

Mike:      …Or took over.

Alan:      Valid point. Everything he took over was in the Insurance line.

Del:         Insurance?

Alan:      Yes Del, insurance. Life Insurance, Car Insurance, Fire, House, Contents. All sorts of insurance, you name it, he’s bought into it.

Mike:      Well there’s no law against that is there?

Alan:      Ordinarily no. But I’ve checked all of the companies against these back-dated FT’s of Dels.

Del:         I told you these old papers would all come in useful one day didn’t I Rodney.

Rodney: Yeah, you said you might be getting a budgie and they’d come in handy for lining the cage didn’t you Del.

Del:         No, I was thinking of investing again Rodney, after we got all that money from the watch.

Rodney: Yeah and look where that got us.

Del:         That wasn’t these investments….

Alan:      Ahem! Getting back to the matter in hand!

Del:         Sorry Alan.

Alan:      Every single one of the Insurance companies Slater bought into was in serious financial

difficulties.

Mike:      And?

Alan:      It’s a classic Ponzi Scheme.

Del:         Too right it’s a poncey scheme, fancy buying up a load of failing companies!

Alan:      No, it doesn’t work like that Del.

Mike:      Well how does it work then?

Alan:      Slater appears to have created his own trust, and with it has acquired Insurance companies that were in financial trouble so could be purchased at very low prices.

Mike:      Doesn’t really explain why he’d want to buy companies in financial trouble.

Del:         Yeah, say they go bust!

Alan:      Insurance regulators and watchdogs keep a careful eye on Insurance companies. All companies, whether in trouble or not, are forced to keep very large reserves, in case they have to pay out to policy-holders. Usually these reserves are invested in government bonds and securities but my guess is that Slater’s used the moneys to help him build his own empire.

Del:         How comes he ain’t been spotted.

Alan:      The trick is to deceive the companies into believing the money is being soundly invested.

Del:         And?

Alan:      Say Slater is using the reserve money from say, five companies. Each have five million in reserves and each expects a profit. Slater will pocket much of it for himself but will also keep a remainder in reserve. Say Twenty Million.

Rodney: And five million for himself!

Mike:      And if one of the investors asks for his money back?

Alan:      Slater pays them back from the reserve. Plus a small profit which would be expected.

Del:         What a great scheme!

Alan:      It is. So long as all the investors don’t all ask for their money back at the same time the scheme goes completely undetected.

Del:         Can you can tell that’s what Slater has done?

Alan:      Can’t prove it Del but there’d be enough of a case for watchdogs to do a full investigation.

Mike:      We’ll tip them off then.

Alan:      Might not be that simple.

Rodney: Why not Alan?

Alan::     Mike cobbled all this together two years ago, Slater might have appropriated a lot more companies since then, for which we have no details.

Mike:      Yeah, and the detective weren’t cheap.

Alan:      Also, it’s very possible that oversees investments are involved. They would come under separate jurisdiction depending on the country and should watchdogs find something suspicious in Slater’s dealings in this country there’s nothing stopping Slater making a payment from abroad to cover any shortcomings.

Del:         Well I reckon we’ve got enough to do him. He likes deals does he? Let’s see if he likes my deal. You leave this to me now Alan, I’ll handle this from here.