TYD Capital review: Scam 1

If anybody has experience with TYD Capital or any of the mentioned persons, please contact me under [protected]@icloud.com so that we can combine all traces and chase the criminals for our funds. Thanks!

In my first conversations with TYD Capital was initiated by Michael Lennard, who explained me that TYD Capital usually recommends investments based on insider knowledge about market developments and that as a first investment - to build trust and get acquainted with each other - he recommends to buy China Mobile since the contract with Apple was certain to be signed and the stock price should then surge. I checked what happened with other telcos that had previously closed contracts with Apple for an exclusive iPhone distribution and found that indeed these telcos temporarily gained value from such contracts and hence agreed to invest into China Mobile. I could have done this with my regular bank account as well, but I felt that if TYD Capital is good for relevant insider information and only earns its money on related transactions it would be fair and helpful going forward to do the truncation through TYD Capital. This is why I first sent money to TYD Capital through the Harman Group

When George Lawrence took over from Michael Lennard, he only explained me his approach to business: only recommending investments when he was sure that they will be successful. He said he relies on insider knowledge that he occasionally gets access to, and which maybe once or four times a year can be solidified to the extent that George sees a confirmation that a potential buyer allocates money for a share purchase. By that time he will recommend his customers to buy shares at normal prices (because insiders did not yet engage on the market) and sell these once a buyer either extends a good offer or by his acquisition activities has raised the public price to an attractive level. He said it may now take 3 to 12 months until he will have an opportunity for me. And then it took a few months and he came up with Blackhawk Mines.

He explained that he knows of an industry investor who is about to buy a majority in Blackhawk mines. He said that the acquisition was already approved by the board of the acquiring company (he could not disclose the acquirers identity for confidentiality reasons) and pending an agreement with the banks. A few days later he called me and told me that he had positive news from insiders within the relevant bank who confirmed that the bank had approved funds for an acquisition of shares at up to 5, 50 USD per share. He advised me that this does not imply that the transaction will close at that prices, but it indicates that a significant increase over the 1, 10 Euro per share at which we could buy the shares was safe to expect. I therefore followed Georges advice to sell the China Mobile shares and invest the same amount into Blackhawk Mines.

Some weeks after this, George called me again and explained that he had found out that a real estate company held shares in Blackhawk Mines and thought that this is unusual and that the real estate fund may be willing to sell at almost no premium - just to get rid of shares that they most likely received as a security. He convinced me of participating in a bid for such shares and a few weeks later confirmed that we have acquired the shares again at 1, 10 EUR, so I had to send the respective amount of money to Harman Resource Management, which I then did.

A few weeks later George called me again and told me - if I remember well - that there was a capital increase in Blackhawk Mines and that as a shareholder I was entitled to participate (also to avoid dilution) and buy new shares at 1 EUR. I did not feel comfortable to increase my position and exposure with TYD Capital any further and first wanted to experience TYD completing a transaction and send me back some money before I would send further money. I explained this to George and he accepted and stated that he thinks the next time he calls me shall be to inform me about the completed transaction.

He then called again a few weeks later informing me that they have been contacted by the potential buyer and start a due diligence and that the target would be a transaction with a sale for 4, 50 EUR per share. Another few weeks later he called me and told me that the buyer - as it is a private equity firm - is not allowed to acquire shares from individuals as this would require a banking license. So they were only capable to acquire positions with a minimum value of 100K shares. He furthermore stated that they have already signed all documents, so no more risk was left for the transaction and they would only now try to get everyone below 100K shares into the boat and then transfer the shares into an escrow where the shares would stay unitl the transaction is closed or a maximum of three months. The share transaction price was fixed at 5, 25 EUR.  I discussed some details about the due diligence etc with George and it seemed to be solid. He knew about such processes as much as it was unlikely to be known by someone who has never participated in such a process. This gave me some confidence. He thought that a transaction will complete by mid of December 2012. Since Blackhawk shares are not easily to sell (little transaction volume) and the upside was high and it sounded kind of solid, I agreed to buy the additional shares. George told me that I can still draw these shares from the capital increase at the cost of 1 EUR and sent me a trade confirmation and new wiring instructions.

When I read the wiring instructions I felt uncomfortable to see that the clearing house has changed to IGPS and asked George about this and he stated that they work with various clearing houses and that for procedural reasons they prefer the new one for this transaction. He stated that they still work with Harman Resource Management and that there was nothing wrong with Harman Resource Management. I then did some research about TYD Capital, Harman Resource Management and IPGS and found
- TYD Capital seems to own the internet domain tydcapital.com only since March 2012
- TYD Capital Inc. is not registered in the Tokyo commercial register
- The building administrator in their Tokyo address does not know TYD Capital
- There is one linked-in member who states that he is employed with TYD Capital in Tokyo for several years now
- There is nothing in the web neither about Michael Lennard nor about George Lawrence
- On the TYD Capital website there is no mention of any particular individual or any business reference
- The focus of the company as described on the website differs a bit from what my understanding of TYD Capital was (more a PE firm than an investment advisor)
- At the given address there is a Regus business center and the Regus business center does not know TYD Capital
- There seems to be no other business center at the given address
- There are no reviews about TYD Capital anywhere in the web. Same for Harman Resource Management and IGPS
- Harman Resource Management and IGPS do not have websites
- There is a strange Facebook site of Harman Resource Management
I therefore confronted George Lawrence with some of these facts and asked him for some kind of evidence that TYD Capital exists and is a solid business and same for the clearing houses. George replied that he does not know the details of the domain registrations nor the hosting or their website and that it is normal that there are few traces about TYD and their clearing houses as traces are not appreciated by some investors who would like to optimize their income tax. In another call George confirmed that TYD does not reside int he given address and uses it only as a correspondence address which he thought would be normal for this kind of business. He also confirmed that TYD Capital is not registered in Japan and mentioned that this kind of business usually is registered somewhere overseas such as in the BVI. I asked him for a scan of his passport and he said it would be the scan of the passport of his director, who unfortunately was on an annual game hunt and could not send his passport now (I have never received it, even when I asked for it months later). While in the beginning George complained that I had committed the share purchase and did not send the respective money and that TYD Capital cannot compensate for me not sending the money,  he later on never complained about the fact that I have not sent the money. I asked him for a reference and expected the reference to be a business they had invested in earlier on, but he came back with Mark Thomas. So I gave Mark a call and learned:
- Mark was born in India, moved to the US when he was two years old and  and later on moved to the UK where he now lives in Blackpool
- He works as an search engine optimization expert in a partnership.
- He deals with TYD Capital since about September 2011
- He initially received a cold call from someone (not Michael Lennard) who acquired him as a customer. He asked how they identified him but he did not get a concrete answer.
- His first investment with TYD Capital was also with China Mobile
- When he after investing needed some liquidity he has asked TYD Capital to sell China Mobile shares for him worth approx 25K EUR and he received this money back into his account with Barklays Bank.
- Next to Barklays Bank and TYD Capital, Mark Thomas deals with Goldman Sachs
- In spring 2012 George Lawrence took over his account and later on proposed to invest into Blackhawk Mines and later on motivated him to bolster up his investment. Now his holding in Blackhawk Mines through TYD Capital is worth about 240K EUR (if I remember right) - well above the 100K shares threshold
-Mark realized that the clearing house changed over time - he thinks he sent money to 3 or 4 different clearing houses.
- Mark also realized that the investment story has slightly changed over time, e.g. that the buyer once was an industrial investor and later on a PE firm
- Mark did not know that the company was not registered in Japan, but did not feel uncomfortable about it. He thought it is normal that with offshore investment advisors it is hard to get clear traces and thought they may well be registered anywhere.
- He had no evidence that TYD Capital or any of their clearing houses were solid. He was not particularly worried about this, but apparently did not ask himself the question before and therefore had no answer to the question what he would do if one day TYD would no longer pick the phone or respond to emails.
- He kind of still felt comfortable with his investment and waited a return in January. If he would not receive a return in January he said he would start to worry.
- We agreed to inform each other once we get any news or evidence with regards to problems or evidence that TYD is a solid business (we did not speak since that call)
I felt that Mark was a real reference, not a spokesperson, in particular since he did not have prepared answers, admitted that some things are strange about TYD only seemed to feel less sorrow.

Since I did not feel comfortable with TYD still after this call, I had another call with George Lawrence asking him to give me further evidence of the solidness of TYD and of my investment. He did not provide any further evidence on TYD and so I asked him to either sell my shares and send me the money or transfer my shares to my regular bank account. I also proposed to sell my shares to other TYD clients which George felt he could not do for compliance reasons. I urged him to clarify this point and he promised to speak with his compliance officer, which he did not do for at least a week. George said sending the shares to my Deutsche Bank account would take about 4-5 weeks since they could not be transferred electronically. I then asked him to put the shares on sale and he confirmed he did instruct a market maker accordingly. There was no transaction, though. I considered trying to buy a few shares through Deutsche Bank just to see if I could buy my own shares, but did not try this. After a month George confirmed that the sales order has naturally expired since they are always only for a month. I asked him how long it would take between me ordering to send the shares to my Deutsche Bank account and the first evidence I would receive from a third party that this transfer has started. He said he will find out with the clearing house. 

This took a long while and ended with the information that there are problems with Harman Resource Management since Harman Resource Management seems to be in litigations and the account would not be accessible. George said TYD was in discussion with legal advisors if they should sue Harman Resource Group and that the legal advisors recommended not to do so since in such a lawsuit information may become public that TYD committed to protect under their non disclosure agreement with the potential buyer. George in the same call in that he confessed the problems with Harman Resource Management stated that the buyer of the shares had accepted to buy the shares even if deposited with Harman Resource Management, however with a small discount (10%). He expects this transaction to happen in 2-3 months. I would however not form part of the initial transaction since I don't have the 100K shares that were required. He however thinks there will be a second transaction in that the buyer collects the smaller positions at a lower price. I later on asked him by email how this should work if the buyer is not allowed to buy smaller positions but did not yet get any response on this. George also promised to have an institutional trader call me so that I can discuss the details of a potential sale with him. I also asked him about the idea of selling my shares to other TYD Capital customers and he stated that every kind of transfer - with third parties or TYD Capital customers will now be kind of impossible since the Harman Resource Management accounts are unaccessible. This turns the clarification with regards to compliance of a sale to another TYD Capital client irrelevant.

George Lawrence in a next call promised to try to send me some evidence, e.g. the passport scan of his director (which he stated he has not yet seen, this year) before the end of that week, which he never did. Instead I received a phone call from a person named Brett Fox. He stated that George Lawrence will continue to be my representative, but that he is now taking care of me for the Blackhawk mines transaction as he is working on this for now 3 years, already. He says he has many clients who have bought Blackhawk mines shares over the last 3 years and have not been affected by the Harman Resource Management problem since TYD has been using Harman Resource Management only since summer last year. According to Brett the other clients who have at least 100K shares and have these outside of Harman Resource Management are receiving their money for the sale of their shares as we spoke. 

Brett's contact details are b.[protected]@tydcapital.com, phone: +[protected] - This phone number is now ansered by Clyan Park of Lazard Bank, Singapore.

Brett stated that he was going to fly to a meeting with the investment bankers and Blackhawk mines that Friday. He states that the investment bankers state they have found a solution of how they can acquire the shares that are kept by Harman Resource Management .

Brett stated that George Lawrence had allocated the 35K shares that I had not yet paid for and that once I pay these I will be considered for the transaction as I will then qualify with the 100K shares. He was not asking me to pay the shares that time as even if I paid them that time, he could not sell the 100K shares as long as the Harman Resource Management problem was not resolved. In any case there seemed to be no other plan to get my shares sold except for me buying the remaining 35K shares in order to get to 100K shares.

Brett also elaborated a bit on the role of the acquirers. He referred to them as investment bankers, but described them more as a private equity firm. The acquirer has the intention to acquire 51% and then strip the assets of Blackhawk mines and sell these assets / pieces separately. According to Brett the acquirers expect to make a profit of 35 USD per share - and he thinks for the remaining 49% of the Blackhawk shareholders there will not be any leftover. 

I also asked Brett for more evidence about TYD Capital and he states he is with TYD Capital for now 9 years. He lives in Kyoto and has not ever met the directors of the company. He states the directors are expatriates who live in Japan. He did not know, where TYD Capital is registered. Brett stated that even though TYD Capitals business is more a private equity business they operate under statutes of an investment bank. He understood my concerns and would try to find out and provide me with some more clarity / evidence in the next call. He mentioned that he is a New Yorker.

There were various follow-up calls that I had thereafter with Brett Fox, Blackhawk Mines, Hong Chin International, and others. I have collected various official pieces of information about the involved businesses and have an idea on how the scam worked. In order to learn more and share your experience so that with combined traces we have better chances to find the criminals and eventually get some funds back, please contact me under my email [protected]@icloud.com