The Asheville Board of Realtors has just voted on a controversial new building purchase in the amount of $2.2 million. Now our funds have been frozen by the government.
The decision to buy a new building was controversial because we have over 1200 members and the only way we could vote was to attend a called "special" meeting with only 7 days notice from the Directors. There was little time for group discussion. The Directors had already made up their minds to move forward, even though the markets are suffering, agents are not renewing Board memberships, and the economy is in the pits.
Many members that were opposed could not attend for various reasons. Some were out of town, or had other conflicts......like maybe trying to make a living. Many contacted our CEO, David West and our President Kimberly Evans to request the ability to have a proxy vote. That was denied. They were told the only way their vote would count was to be present.
Now, any thinking and caring member of such an organization knows there is no way a true majority of members can attend a meeting to decide the fate of our investments large or small. This will be no small investment.
It was voted in by 239 to 100. The 239 have decided the fate of 1280 members and have committed to spend the $2.2 million even though there was some concern about the safety of our funds.
After the vote, we receive this news from our Treasurer: Our Funds Are Frozen In The Stanford Group Fiasco!
Dear Members,
Over the past week there have been some questions concerning the ABR investments that are held locally with the Stanford Group. If you have been watching or reading the media you already know that the international banking division of Stanford has been under scrutiny from the SEC and the Federal Government. Our assets are not held in this division of Stanford Financial.
On Wednesday of this week the finance committee at the Board of Realtors had the opportunity to sit down with our advisors at The Stanford Group and converse with them at length about the status of our investments with relation to the company in general. Our assets are being held with The Pershing Group and are under advisement with Stanford. We were assured that our investments are not subject to any of the current investigations from the SEC, however as a precaution the trustee in charge of investigating these allegations has temporarily frozen all assets being held by or under the advisement of the Stanford Group.
We enjoy a custodial relationship with the Pershing Group who works with Stanford on our assets and because of this relationship we have been assured that all assets will be released soon. When those assets are released the purchase of the new building will move forward and we will move our assets to a new investment company for advisement. If you would like to e-mail me you can at this e-mail address jasoningle@abr-nc.com and I will answer any questions that I can.
Regards,
Jason Ingle
Treasurer-Asheville Board of Realtors
Maybe you should question your Directors to make sure they have not had any of the funds caught up in this situation also, whether your Board is going to make a large investment or not.
;)
;)
