Credit Card Bills

It is amazing how fast a month flies past.

I racked up a hefty amount of credit card bills during the past month paying for a lot of big ticket items. Stuff like road tax and car insurance were all due together and so my credit card bills balloned to way past the $3000 dollar mark.

Looks like this month will be a leaner month for me. Time to tighten the belt and start saving for the year end holiday.

Remisier King Peter Lim Offers $750m for Liverpool

Peter Lim had increased his bid for Liverpool to fend off US rivals. Besides offering to clear the debts of Liverpool, he is also willing to give an immediate cash injection of 40 million pounds for the football club to buy new players. His bid is also attractive as it does not require an financing.

This comes amidst a bitter court battle over the sale of Liverpool. The other two bidders are New England Sports Ventures (NESV) and Mill Financial (a US hedge fund).

Mr Lim is the son of a fishmonger and is revered in Singapore financial circles for being an extremely savvy investors. Known as the "remisier king", he amassed a large fortune and had a winning touch in various companies - the biggest being that in Wilmar International which grew from $10 million initial investment to close to $2 billion today.

He however has business relationship with Manchester United and has the sole rights to own, operate and develop a chain of the famous club's restaurants across Asia. Whether he will give up the venture remains unknown.

The fate of offer will however depend on the court battle that is currently being waged between Liverpool's owners and chairman. The Liverpool owners want to stop the sale as they claim the price is too low. If the court rules in favor of the current Liverpool American owners, the club is likely to go into administration and will lose even more points in the Premier League.

Being a savvy investor, Peter Lim certainly must know what he is doing and while English media and fans are wary of the bid, Singaporeans here are cheering that our very own local hero could potentially own one of the biggest sporting clubs in English football history. Others have however questioned whether that money could be invested in the ailing local soccer scene which would benefit in a big way from that amount.

As Andy Ho, president of the local Liverpool supporters' club says: " This will put Singapore on the world football map."

Peter Lim Makes Offer for Liverpool

Former remisier king has made an offer to buy over Liverpool.

Well done! Our very own Singaporean billionaire who can afford to buy over a well-known English football club. I wrote about Peter Lim some time back under this post.

So how will this impact me?

Well, just yesterday, I saw my blog views on this blog jump to over 2000 page views in a single day just on that post alone.

I guess the hype about this new potential owner of Liverpool has got many people Googling his name and landing up on my blog.

AIA Agent's Insurance Scam

Another scam has hit the market. This time in the insurance industry again. It is like...AGAIN??


It is not surprising that in my first post in IMSavvy, I decided to write about whether one can trust your financial planner. I wrote that post because I cracked my head hard to think of a posting that would truly be timeless in a certain way. And I have been proven right in a certain sense. There are definitely conflicts of interests in the financial advisory business where the salary model is that of a sales business (i.e. commission based). A lot of unethical people lurk in the insurance business where the entry into business is easy and the rewards are high.

No matter how hard you try to argue that there is no conflict of interest, this conflict of interest will exist.

But I guess in the AIA agent's case, this has been brought to a whole new level. Selling non-existent insurance products! Who is to blame? Surely not AIA. Which insurance company can actually stop its agent from selling non-existent products? This is just an outright scam and the agent involve just lacks the ethics. It could literally happen anywhere and it is just unfortunate that this happened in the insurance industry AGAIN.

So what can the consumer do?

Simple. Just make sure that whatever contract you sign is really legal and is from the insurance company. Letter heads can be faked and so can many other things if the agent is out to cheat your money.

Another way is to not pass hard cash and when in doubt, call the customer service for info (yes, please get the customer service number from the website and not from your "trusted" agent)

Finexis and AXA FutureProtector

Many of you should recall the saga between AXA and Finexis over the sale of the FutureProtector term insurance which was literally given away free by Finexis. AXA ended up demanding to claw back money from Finexis due to the high lapse rate of the product.

Just the other day, I received a letter dated 1st Oct 2010 from Finexis. Its contents are as follows:

================

Attention: Mr/Ms./Mdm XXXX

FUTUREPROTECTOR PLAN

Dear Mr/Ms./Mdm XXXX,

Thank you for being a client of Finexis Advisory Pte Ltd.

As you would know, insurance provides peace of mind for you and your family, and an appropriate amount of term insurance coverage is the foundation of proper financial planning. These term insurance rates tend to increase with age and your decision in getting such coverage early is extremely prudent. The AXA Futureprotector is such a term plan, which offers you the following benefits:

• Financial protection against death and terminal illness
• Guaranteed renewability
• Guaranteed premiums for the coverage term

We noted that you have purchased the AXA Futureprotector last year during our promotion. However, you may have overlooked the renewal and thus, your Futureprotector is no longer inforce.

To allow you to renew your Futureprotector plan, which has lapsed on 17 April 2010, we have arranged for designated personnel(s), to contact you soon to follow up on our letter and to complete the Health Declaration form. The reinstatement will be at AXA's absolute discretion and this letter is valid till 15 January 2011.

Yours sincerely,

Signed off by Warren Lim

=====================

I think Mr Warren Lim is mistaken in a few ways by sending me this letter:

Firstly, I did not purchase AXA Futureprotector. It was given to me free-of-charge as part of their promotion. I was told to just pay for it first with a full reimbursement to come later.

Secondly, I did not overlook the renewal. I was reminded by the agent to cancel it and he even sent me a Giro cancellation form which I did not use at the end of the day as I simply called up the bank.

Thirdly, once you get something for free, it is very seldom that you will want to pay for it. Why pay for something when you had it for free the last time?

To Cultivate Generosity and Love Simplicity

I read a book by John Stott about some Christian perspectives about wealth and I had some reflections about the matter which I thought might be useful to share.

How to be content in life is really not about chasing riches or wealth.

Being content in life is really about learning how to live simply or to love simplicity. Truth be told, many of the pleasures in life can actually be enjoyed without paying a single cent. Sometimes, the night sky with all the stars is enough to take my breath away compared to watching a zillion movies. Living simply also means being happy with the simple things in life like the MRT ride to work, the cup of coffee, a quiet rest at night, a nice bath, etc.

Loving simplicity is however not enough. One ought not to hoard wealth to the extent that he puts his trust in them. After all, you never know whether you will wake up with it or whether you might even wake up the next day. Another part about managing wealth is really about learning how to give your money away according to your means. The money that you have can be given to good causes rather than just to satisfy your own desires. After all, what can one do with so much money if you don't even know whether you will live past a certain age.

So cultivate generosity and love simplicity. Be content with the food and clothing you have. Give generously to the poor.

Big Money Talk on MRT

I was on the MRT going back home when I overheard this conversation between a middle-aged man and a guy in his late twenties. The young chap was probably a property agent and talking to this middle-aged man who was also probably a property agent himself. They were talking about flipping properties and the young chap was eager to learn from the middle-age man.

Young man: So you buy and sold a lot of properties?

Old Man: Yes. A lot. In the past, just buy and then sell, and you make lots of money.

Young man: How much money do you make per sale?

Old Man: Good money.

Young man: So 30K?

Old Man: No lah! 30K is peanuts. I am talking about 6 digit here man... 30, 40K is peanuts!

Young man: Wow. *suitably impressed

Old Man: In 2007, any property on the market, you just buy and sell. Surely make money.

Young man: Wow. So you must have made a lot of money.

Old Man: Enough to survive lah. Nowadays it's just consolidating.

Young man: So how much do you make from all your transactions? Got 200K?

Old Man: No lah! Please! 100-200K is peanuts I tell you. Chey..200K is nothing man, I tell you.

Young Man: Wow....

Even when I heard this conversation, I was like "Wow". 200K is peanuts??

Some people do not even earn $200K after working for ten years and here was a man talking quite loudly in the MRT about $200K being peanuts and how he has made a lot from flipping properties.

Food for thought!