Harold Backer article

[sul]

Saw this article yesterday morning, and Ed put it up on his site.

http://www.ai-cio.com/The-Departed.aspx

One thing I couldn't get out of the article was the extent of losses. Did the investors Harold cultivated lose everything they put in, or just the paper gains they were told they had?

From the description, sounds like the primary investment vehicles were mutual funds, and he took his own fees to begin more risky ventures. He lied about his investors holdings after they lost in the dot.com and 2007 busts. But my mutuals got slammed really hard then as well, and by leaving them along, I'm back to well above where I was before the crashes thanks to the bulls of the last half dozen years.

I would expect that these original investments would have done similarly, the article made it sound as though people lost everything.

I did learn something, life insurance will pay off in suicide as long it's been a long term policy. The need for a recovered body didn't make sense. I've read about some insurance frauds in the past where someone fakes suicide, gets away with it for a while.

Very interesting that Kip, the author, has nearly identical background as his subject! Canadian nat teamer, Ivy league, investment broker.

I googled other articles but couldn't get a clear answer. For example, it appeared the Klavoras invested some $600k with Backer since the late 90s. In another article I read, Dr Klavora claimed to read a recent statement that showed him with $839k. That seems to be in the ball park of an aggressive indexed fund performance from '96 to now that included the heavy losses in '01 and '07.

So did all of that go with him to Panama?

It would seem that the Klavoras would still have a substantial holding given what I read.

But I'm too ignorant of these investment vehicles.

[Crabshack]

Shocking twist to the story. Harold Backer turned himself in to Victoria Police last night.

http://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/b-c-i ... -1.3369161

[fullmetal]

Wow. Old wounds will be reopened before closure arrives.