Shaun Altman To Liquidate Ginko “Perpetual” Bonds
by Pixeleen Mistral on 20/10/07 at 5:51 pm
Nicholas Portocarrero given 11 days to hand over the remains of $750,000.00 USD in deposits, 18,000 people still holding claims against failed bank.
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Shaun Altman announced today that as majority bondholder of Ginko Perpetual Bonds, he will take possession of all Ginko assets so that they may be liquidated and a L$ cash distribution made to the approximately 18,000 current Ginko bondholders. Ginko Perpetual Bonds were the financial vehicle used to hold claims against Ginko Financial after the L$ spacebuck bank failed amid allegations that it was a ponzi scheme.
With chances of a Ginko recovery dim and the once popular virtual financial bank’s web site shuttered, players may be happy to see something other than long term promises. Mr. Altman already has recovered some in-world assets of Ginko including 1 sim worth of land and some large blocks of virtual stocks and bonds, but liquidating these thinly traded stocks without depressing their value may be difficult.
Former Ginko honcho Nicholas Portocarrero presumably still holds some assets outside Second Life. According to Mr. Altman, Mr. Portocarrero has been given until the end of October to return whatever cash and assets he still retains from the $750,000.00 USD deposited in Ginko Financial. It remains to be seen if this request will be honored, and if the game gods at Linden Lab will take an interest in this situation.
Mr. Altman, a grey fox avatar with blue hair and eyes, took time from his busy schedule to answer a few questions, and shed some light on the Ginko liquidation situation in an exclusive interview.
Pixeleen Mistral: why are you doing this? what is in it for you?
Shaun Altman: I’m the majority bondholder. Like all bondholders, I have an interest in seeing Ginko’s assets liquidated so we can recover what funds we can. As the largest bondholder, I guess it should fall on me to step up to the plate and do what I can to ensure that this happens.
Pixeleen Mistral: how many individuals hold bonds?
Shaun Altman: I’m not sure. LukeConnell Vandeverre would have those records. I THINK it’s around 18,000 individuals.
Pixeleen Mistral: any feeling for how much in the way of assets you can liquidate?
Shaun Altman: Brautigan is turning over bondholder property in the form of 8,783,436 shares of BNT stock and one sim of land. Assuming that Connell also turns over the bondholders’ property as requested, that would be another 8,800,000 HCL shares. These are all of the in-world assets that I presently know about, but I am searching to see if I can discover any more. I’ve also requested in my press release that Portocarrao turn over any cash or other assets that remain. It is unclear at the moment whether or not he will comply.
Pixeleen Mistral: so presumably you will have a mix of land, L$s and stock – are you planning to sell everything to convert it all to L$s?
Shaun Altman: Yes, but slowly, so as not to have any more negative impact on the valuation of the bondholders’ property than absolutely ncessary.
Pixeleen Mistral: that is a concern
Shaun Altman: Its a huge concern when we’re dealing with this much stock yes.
Pixeleen Mistral: when do you expect that people might actually see some L$s?
Shaun Altman: That depends on how quickly the respective stock markets absorb the stocks. I wouldn’t want to speculate. Speaking personally, I hope it won’t take too long, but I just don’t know for sure.
Pixeleen Mistral: have you considered doing partial distributions of the cash on hand, then more as you liquidate the stocks? or will you do one single distribution?
Shaun Altman: That’s one possibility. Another possibility would be to allow people to accept stocks in lieu of cash, but ONLY if they wish to and NOT in the form of a massive forced rollover of the bonds into some other “stock” or “fund” holding less value than the original security. Enough harm has been done to these people and it is time for them to rightfully recover what cash they can.
Pixeleen Mistral: will some people want to opt out of this entirely? what about the people who still believe it might work out?
Shaun Altman: I can’t think of any reason why a bondholder would not want to recover their share of the liquidation proceeds. It will not still work out. It is over. I will link you to Portocarrao’s press release. He has walked away. The man has said he’s taking what he has left and leaving. In what form would you propose that it continue? 
Pixeleen Mistral: good point
Shaun Altman: I cannot imagine that any bondholder would not agree that it is time to liquidate what assets we can reclaim and recover what funds we can.
Pixeleen Mistral: I think publishing what assets you can find and that sort of thing is wise – there will be some transparency
Shaun Altman: Yes I’ve tried to ensure that there will be full transparency through this process. Anyone with any ideas on this is welcome to contact me.
Pixeleen Mistral: One thing worries me though – how will you contact 18,000 people? that seems like a HUGE task
Shaun Altman: I will not. They are on record at World Stock Exchange. I will hand over the funds for a liquidation dividend, and expect that World Stock Exchange will post that dividend.
Pixeleen Mistral: do they have some automated way to contact people? or you just put things in the accounts and call it good?
Shaun Altman: Yes the dividends post to World Stock Exchange accounts automatically. They need to stop by and withdraw the funds once posted
Pixeleen Mistral: it could get interesting if there are people holding assets that refuse to let go of them
Shaun Altman: Those people would be thiefs and should be regarded as such. The assets are the property of the bondholders. One of the most significant asset holders has already agreed to turn over our property though, so this is a good sign that others will follow.
October 20, 2007
GINKO PERPETUAL BOND LIQUIDATION PLAN
Greetings,
I’m Shaun Altman. As the majority bondholder of Ginko Perpetual Bonds (GPB), as well as an independent third party with no direct affiliation to any institution at which Ginko (Nicholas Portocarrero) holds assets, I am taking it upon myself to oversee the fair and equitable liquidation of GPB’s current assets, and the timely compensation of all bondholders.
My avatar is currently acting as a Second Life trust, to take possession of and liquidate all GPB assets, so that a cash liquidation dividend may be provided to all GPB bondholders. I have spoken with IntLibber Brautigan, CEO of Brautigan and Tuck (BNT), who has agreed to transfer 8,783,436 shares of Brautigan and Tuck stock from Nicholas Portocarrero’s name into mine. This share balance represents GPB’s entire holding of BNT shares, and establishes my virtual liquidation trust. IntLibber Brautigan has farther agreed to act as a broker for my virtual trust by selling GPB’s land in its estate (the sim of Von Mises and the Von Mises Tower and Mall), and providing the L$ resulting from this sale to my trust for distribution to GPB bondholders. Brautigan has also agreed not to impose any additional burden on GPB bondholders by requiring my trust to pay tier on the land in question. Parties interested in the properties should contact IntLibber or BNT President Kaddan Yue.
I will continue collecting GPB assets for liquidation until October 31, 2007. If you are currently in possession of, or “listing” GPB assets, please contact me prior to October 31, 2007 to arrange for these assets to be transferred into my name for liquidation. If you KNOW anyone who is in possession of, or “listing” GPB assets, please ENSURE that they see this press release and contact me prior to October 31, 2007. If Nicholas Portocarrero has any remaining cash or other assets that he intends to return to GPB shareholders, he should contact ME prior to October 31, 2007 to transfer said cash and other assets to my Second Life account for liquidation and subsequent distribution of proceeds to GPB bondholders. If not, he should leave me an IM stating that he will not be returning any of the $750,000.00 USD worth of cash and other assets to his bondholders.
On November 1, 2007, I will be distributing another press release to major Second Life media centers documenting the following:
1. All assets (cash, stock, land, etc) that I was able to recover for liquidation and subsequent distribution of proceeds to GPB bondholders.
2. All known GPB assets that have been stolen by third parties who refused to provide them for liquidation and subsequent distribution of proceeds to GPB bondholders, and the names of the parties responsible.
Once all recovered assets have been publicly documented, I will begin liquidating all non-cash assets to recover as much cash as possible for GPB bondholders. Once this liquidation is complete, I will distribute a third press release to major Second Life media centers documenting the total amount of cash that was recovered for GPB bondholders. At that point, I will hand all cash to LukeConnell Vandeverre, who maintains GPB’s bondholder records, for IMMEDIATE distribution as a cash dividend to GPB bondholders. Once this liquidation dividend is posted to the accounts of GPB bondholders, GPB will be considered fully liquidated and all bonds should be delisted.
I will be charging nothing for my liquidation trust service. I believe that GPB bondholders have been through enough at this point, and have a right to recover as much as they can from this fiasco. Being the person with the most GPB bonds, as well as a neutral third party to asset holders, makes me the right person to handle this liquidation. The ball is already rolling, so I ask that all bondholders recognize this, and recognize that I am working in all of our best interest. I hope that it makes you happy to know that someone is finally working in YOUR best interest for the first time in a long time. I hope that I will be able to recover a sizable portion of GPB’s assets for distribution to all of us, but I can’t make any promises.
To be clear, I am not acting as a CEO of Ginko, nor am I in any way affiliating myself with Ginko. I am merely overseeing the liquidation of a failed Second Life company, so that its investors can recover as much as possible.
Regards,
Shaun Altman
greedy greedy
Oct 20th, 2007
anyone who had funds at ginko, who took the risk to get the high return, well heck, you had to know that it was going to end like this eventually. what a scam. oh but now you want your money back? run nic, run. you hustled them, keep your chips. greedy bondholders deserve 0.
Tenshi Vielle
Oct 20th, 2007
Are you serious? 18 THOUSAND people? good lord. 18 thousand STUPID people trusting in an ONLINE bank. Next time try a real bank that way you can at least set it on fire when they lose all your cash.
Uccello Poultry
Oct 20th, 2007
Maybe I was stupid. But I did some research and Ginko was, a the the time I joined, one of the oldest and most trusted “banks” and had one of the lowest interest rates. I figured it wasn’t too good to be true. Now I’m out $65,000L … maybe I was stupid, but trust has to start somewhere.
Anonymous1
Oct 21st, 2007
Shaun needs to wake up and realise that he doesn’t control the future for Ginko bondholders and he shouldn’t be. Everyone knows Shaun took advantage of innocent bondholders who were selling their bonds cheap in the hope that he would make a huge profit. Now that the risk he took didn’t pay off he wants to liquidate around L$500,000 worth of land and then post a dividend that would result in bondholders seeing less than L$0.003 per bond from their original L$1 deposit in Ginko Financial. I don’t want L$0.003 for every L$1 that I had in deposit and I would prefer to see if the WSE can create value where there was none and to help us get a better return.
economic mip
Oct 21st, 2007
Well I am a shareholder, because it has given me insight into the WSE, and others of this type. For example, Shaun bought all of his shares at the lowest points available, and as the largest shareholder will also get this global vendor/script thing that Ginko Financial had claimed would carry their section (or claimed separate business) through the fiasco. I am sorry but this whole thing is so far outside the realm of real world Economics or any Economic Theory that at this point I couldn’t figure it out if I cared. Likely I will get little of the .25 US cents I used to prod Ginko, and really could care less. However, as the person who created the WSE trading platform it is important that Mr. Altman be carefully watched. (Oh and further transparency would include a real life name and age Shaun, that would help).
Remind me again why no Aussie exchange commission or Lindens have come after this mess yet?
Prokofy Neva
Oct 21st, 2007
Since Ginko offered $100 free for every new account at one time, and many “newbies” rushed to grab the $100, there are scores and scores of alt accounts involved. The figure could be more like $1800.
Prokofy Neva
Oct 21st, 2007
*1,800 accounts not 18,000 but there is no way of knowing. It’s still a matter to compensate them all.
voom
Oct 21st, 2007
Remember what shaun did with his HCL shares. He dumped and crashed a stcok.
Curious what he want to do know?
What is your real agenda, Shaun?
Shaun Altman
Oct 21st, 2007
Hi voom,
I thought I’d made my agenda fairly clear. It is to recover any bondholder property that is in-world and being held by various sources, liqidate said propery, and provide resulting funds to bondholders, so we can recover what little value is left before that too vanishes.
Also, I didn’t crash any stocks. I assume you’re referring to HCL, and its been a long, LONG time since I’ve sold HCL shares in high volumes. If I’d “crashed” it, it would have of course recovered. When a stock makes a big move off of an unsustainable high to trade in a more sustainable range, this is known as a “correction”, not a “crash”. I’m sorry that your stock is only worth about $0.75 right now, but I don’t set the value, you do. On the bright side, I’ve noticed quite a few recent additions to the WSE trading platform. Maybe these will prove useful and drive HCL stock values higher. Maybe not though.. as always, that’s up to you.
-Shaun
Anonymous1
Oct 21st, 2007
I owned HCL stock and I paid around L$5.00 per share and everyone knows Shaun crashed the market and HCL by filling all the market orders available only to then withdraw it all otherwise we would have seen huge volumes on WSE for a longer time. I wonder how much Lindens Shaun received for those 12m plus shares he was given by HCL in good faith and if he reinvested it back into the SL economy or did it just go into his pocket for a new car to pollute the planet.
Obscure Doodad
Oct 21st, 2007
I was not in any way involved in this fiasco, and I don’t know if terminology is somehow different from RL — but in general, and VERY IMPORTANTLY, the holders of “bonds” of a business have no wherewithal whatsoever to seize any property of a business. If bonds are due to be paid interest from a business, and that business does not pay that interest, then a legal proceeding can initiate to declare the business in default.
At that point the court, NOT THE BOND HOLDERS, take possession of property and whether or not to liquidate that property for dispersal to lenders will be a decision worked out UNDER THE AUSPICES of a court.
Someone who happens to have made large loans to a business, which is what a “large bondholder” would be, is nothing more or less than a creditor. He has zero authority to seize property. In fact, doing so is theft.
Of course, SL may not reflect RL methodology, but it is useful to remember that RL methodology evolved over long periods of time to reduce and eliminate problems with random methodologies — like large creditors seizing property they do not own.
Nacon
Oct 21st, 2007
Well I have to admit one thing that SL Herald did a good job at….
Getting a picture of Nicholas Portocarrero with his stupid bling necklace on.
(Think maybe he was spending on something for himself? Har, surely did.)
Nacon
Oct 21st, 2007
Whoops… make that Shaun Altman, not Nicholas.
Cristalle Karami
Oct 22nd, 2007
Interesting point, Obscure … or Nick … whatever. But let’s not forget that the forced conversion of bank deposits into perpetual bonds was theft, too. RL methodology was designed to stop practices like that, too. But it’s very convenient to forget that point, isn’t it?
Roburt Musketeer
Oct 22nd, 2007
I only a few thousand ginko junk bonds, so I don’t have that big a stake in the ginko disaster. I figured Ginko was a ponzi of one sort or another, but it was an entertaining one, and I only threw a few dollars into it. I watched GPB lose 80% of their value instantly, then spiral down to 7%. I’ve hung onto them just to see what would happen, and if Nick would make the first interest payment or not (Not, obviously).
Well, now Ginko is well and truly dead, and I suppose it’s time to strip the corpse of valuables and chuck it in a deep, deep hole. There’s no ‘legal’ system or ‘courts’ in SL to go about doing this, so it’s up to the bondholders to oerganize things and liquidate the assets (with the help of ethical asset holders and a little peer pressure)
Now, if Shaun wants to do that job for me, that’s fine by me. I don’t know a thing about him, and all I can do is hope he’s honest about it and doesn’t skim anything off the top when he reports the assets he’s aquired. But the odds of him being honest are better than the odds of me getting much out of Ginko myself, so to hell with it. And if Shaun makes some cash from having bought GPB off of investors at pennis on the dollar, then good for him. He didn’t hold a gun and FORCE people to sell him their bonds at low prices, did he?
DaveOner
Oct 22nd, 2007
@Uccello Poultry: Yes, that was stupid beyond measure. You lost more than US$180.00 into a single video game. You essentially bought the same Sonic the Hedgehog game 5 times without actually doing much running or jumping.
Nic should just never log into SL again and call it even (or get an alt haha). He taught you all a valuable lesson.
@Everyone that wants LL to get involved in this situation: You’re morons. None of you can complain about the gambling ban or “broadly offensive” if you are calling for LL to get involved in this situation.
This is a prime example of “TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS”.
You gave an assload of money to a guy with hollow promises and not much else to offer. I saw it the first second I looked into Ginko way back when everyone swore by it.
Now you’re all crying “ponzi!” and want Uncle Linden to wipe the dirt off you and pick you up after falling off the swings. Well it should be obvious to you kids that Uncle Linden likes to touch people and there’s a reason he’s not seen at the playground much these days!
Keep LL out of SL and take responsibility for your own decisions like adults.
voom
Oct 22nd, 2007
Hello Shaun,
For your information,I own HCL and Ginko. Yes I also bought Ginko cheap and took the risk. Concerning HCL you probably know that it doesn’t matter if a price goes up or down, in every market you can make money. I feel very comfortable with the price of HCL at the moment.
We can argue what a correction or a crash is? Secondlife is a micro economy at the moment. And every economy has his up’s or down’s.
I am only interested to see what will happen next. Who will execute this? I agree with you that this story needs to be ended (=liquidated). I wonder how you will liquidate a hugh number of shares for a reasonable price, that is why I came up with HCL. Selling is not a problem only to find good buyers.
With other words share us your plans.
Thanks!
Lewis Nerd
Oct 22nd, 2007
It probably doesn’t mean much to most but I’ve known Shaun for a long time and trust him.
I didn’t invest anything in Ginko… I saw it as too good to be true right from the start.
Lewis
Pix Knows Dix
Oct 24th, 2007
Pix you need to research more, BNT in september traded over 3 million shares on SLCapex, so its hardly “thinly traded”, in fact BNT trades made up the bulk of SLCX revenues since Arb stole, I mean bought, the AVIX from Investor Allen. Its departure explains the decline of that exchange, just as the WSE went into a tailspin when BNT left that exchange in disgust over the corruption there (3-6million L$ a day in April, 200kL$ a day today).
It is now listed on the Ancapistan Capital Exchange in Venture Square, where its now free of corrupt manipulation by individuals inimical to the company. ACE will be holding elections for its board of directors from among its member investors, which will be overseen by the SL Exchange Commission.
Codeine.
Sep 21st, 2009
Buy acetylsalicylic caffeine codeine.
Codeine combined pseudoephedrine. Codeine cough syrup. Acet codeine. Codeine.