VOL. 6, NO. 7 • April 4, 2012 618 Strouds Lane, Pickering, ON L1V 4S9 • Tel: 905.831-4402 • Fax: 416.292.2943 • Email: [email protected] 360 Degree Financial’s Founder Facing Fraud Charges Toronto police recently announced fraud charg- was also licensed to sell life insurance and accident es against former 360 Degree Financial Services and sickness insurance by the Financial Services Founder and President Wilton Neale. The Finan- Commission of Ontario. cial Crimes Unit announced 10 counts of fraud over Neale incorporated 360 Degree Financial Services $5,000 and one count of fraud under $5,000 against Inc. on Feb. 2, 2005. He was the sole officer and di- Wilton Neale, 50, who headed two investment firms, rector of 360˚, which was also licensed by FSCO to 360 Degree Financial Services Inc. and Multiple sell insurance products. 360˚ was party to a distribu- Streams of Income Inc, and who has already been tion agreement with AGF Trust which enabled 360˚ sanctioned by both the Ontario Securities Commis- to apply on behalf of its customers to AGF Trust for sion and the Financial Services Commission of On- loans which were required to be invested in RSP eli- tario. gible products. FSCO issued a permanent cease and Police say they have been investigating allega- desist order against 360˚ on March 4, 2009 prohibit- tions of fraud involving the two firms since June of ing it from carrying on the business of insurance. last year. In unveiling the charges, they said that be- According to the Securities Commission Reports tween October 2007 and February 2010, Neale “con- during 2007 and 2008, 360˚ was experiencing finan- vinced victims to invest funds in his companies that cial difficulty. In an effort to raise capital for 360˚, they had obtained through loans, lines of credit and Neale through MSI solicited several investors to re-financing of their homes”, and that he took their purchase $584,500 of debentures issued by MSI. Al- funds but did not invest them as agreed. It claims Wilton Neale though some of the MSI debenture investors were he took in approximately $1.3 million during the pe- of securities; that he, MSI and 360˚ engaged in mis- told that their money would be applied to special riod. leading conduct; and, that they had acted contrary to projects of benefit to their community, the funds The allegations have not been proven. Neale is the public interest. raised were in fact commingled in the bank account scheduled to appear in court at College Park on May FSCO had also issued a permanent cease and de- of 360˚ and used by 360˚ in the ordinary course of its 8. sist order against both Neale and 360˚ in March 2009 business. None of the debentures were repaid at ma- Back in October 2010, the OSC settled its own prohibiting them from carrying on the business of turity or at any other time. Neale and MSI were not allegations against Neale and his two companies, insurance in Ontario. MSI was never registered with registered to trade or advise in securities. MSI was imposing an administrative penalty of $500,000, re- FSCO or the OSC. at no time registered to issue securities. The MSI quiring disgorgement of $265,179, costs of $10,000, Neale was licensed as a sales person of Keybase debenture securities were not offered pursuant to a and a 15-year trading ban and director and officer Financial Group Inc., a dealer registered in the cat- prospectus nor was there any prospectus exemption ban. In that proceeding, Neale acknowledged that egory of mutual funds dealer, from Feb. 18, 2006 to available to MSI for the described debenture financ- he and MSI engaged in an unauthorized distribution Jan. 18, 2007 when he was terminated for cause. He ing. REDjet Return Up In The Air! BRIDGETOWN, - All appears to be lost for Hutson revealed as much in an April 1 interview Barbados-based carrier REDjet. This comes as with the DAILY NATION, even though REDjet Barbados suspended the airline’s Air Operators’ director Ralph “Bizzy” Williams had sounded the Certificate (AOC) with effect March 20, four days carrier’s death knell 24 hours before. after the airline suspended all flights to its nine des- “We are working on a solution . to give the air- tinations, and Trinidad’s revocation of its licence to line a provisional licence under the act if they can fly to that country by the Trinidad and Tobago Civil have the airline up and running in 60 days,” Hutson Aviation Authority. According to reports, this chain said. “The licence will also be valid for a year.” of events sealed the airline’s fate, making it even Noting that any other “accommodation” would owned by the governments of Barbados, Antigua more unlikely for its return to the skies after a mere fall under the purview of the Prime Minister and and Barbuda, and St Vincent and the Grenadines – 10 months in the air. It also means that the airline’s Minister of Finance, Hutson pointed out that Gov- had suffered substantial losses in the last two years, 90 employees will have to seek other forms of em- ernment had been getting “licks” in its efforts to Hutson called on the airline to “look at some of the ployment. find a solution to the problems surrounding the things REDjet was doing that were good”. Directors of the airline, as well as Chief Execu- Four Seasons resort and said he did not know “if “LIAT should probably look at the experience of tive Officer, Mr. Ian Burns, have indicated that the anyone would like to see a big injection into RED- REDjet . for instance, there is a demand for spe- airline needs an $8 million injection to remain in jet without knowing what is likely to happen down cial pricing, holiday and family specials and so on. the skies. However, there are some who still hold the line”. “There’s also a lot of excess capacity on the air- the view that all is not lost for the airline, as the Meanwhile, the grounding of REDjet has also craft. LIAT’s load factor is about 60 per cent, while Guyana and Antiguan governments pledge their seen an increase in airfares by regional carrier REDjet’s is less than 50 per cent on average. continued support of the airline. LIAT. Hutson has also suggested that LIAT is do- “So LIAT needs to look at some of the things The Barbados Government is also working on ing no better than REDjet and should work some REDjet was doing . and adapt them into its a plan to get low-cost carrier REDjet back in the of the grounded low-cost carrier’s good points model. LIAT also has variable pricing, but doesn’t skies. Minister of International Transport George into its own model. Noting that LIAT – which is market it,” he told local reporters in an interview. PAGE 2 CARIBBEAN GRAPHIC April 4, 2012 Community The Ticket To Building A Successful Business a team can be even more challenging, but tition. I never actually cared if there was as well as give back to the designing com- Chankar was undaunted by the challenges one. I just had to do MY job. If there was munity through posting educational tips on of leading his company by himself. a guy down the street or next door to me, it the company website for up and coming “I was never one to focus on the compe- didn’t matter. I just had to do what I had to designers. Akua Hinds Starting a business is a big challenge, but the challenge of pursuing entrepreneur- ship did not intimidate Tony Chankar from blazing his own trail and launching a print and design company. The Trinidadian na- tive, who has lived in Canada since 1975, felt that he could contribute to his commu- nity through using his talents. “I started marketing, and then I went to U of T and did design. It was just a natural progression for me to get into the printing industry,” Chankar said. Do you remember what life and busi- ness were like before the Internet was as widely available as it is today? Finding in- formation and images back then was much more time consuming than now. Chankar founded his company, The Printing Press Inc., in the year 1991, a time when the word “Google” did not exist. “Our computers were a lot slower than they are today. That was all a challenge. The technology then was very different than today. In those days, the technology for designing wasn’t as good as it is today. We had no Internet then. So, we pretty much didn’t have an Internet to go to get images or to get resources as we have to- day,” Chankar explained. Starting a new business with a team can Tony Chankar be challenging in the initial stages, and launching a company without the help of do to get my job done,” Chankar said. “I wouldn’t want to say I’m a teacher of Chankar reached out to the Greater To- any kind, because, we focus on what we ronto Area’s Caribbean community to get do. But yes, we do provide information his business off the ground in the initial for upcoming designers as well so that they days, and he and his company continue to can learn how to do their jobs better and reach out to Canadian West Indians. make it easier for them to do business,” “They were pretty supportive.