Marsa Alam Beach Resort Alarm Bells RINGING

[realinvestor]

Originally Posted by SJH11

Realinvestor, your biased untruths make me wonder who you are working for. At the moment, our large investors' group is in constant touch with Eric Maan of El Sery. So no, El Sery have NOT shut up shop and done a runner. I have no axe to grind here and I have not ruled out legal action for the future. However, will all those who are taking legal action please get real. Just what do you think you will achieve for yourselves? If a fraud is proven - and that is a big 'IF' - those responsible will perhaps be imprisoned and their assets sold off to pay creditors. Do you really think you will get your money back? If most of it has been spent on spiralling costs to get the MABR site to where it is, then it CANNOT be paid back to the investors, because it has gone. In my opinion (and that is all it can be) the only option is for investors to wait until the site is finished and get our apartments handed over. It is not ideal but the other option is to spend money on solicitors who may or may not get a result in the courts. Only if they get a result in the courts, do the courts award to the investors. BUT if there is no money available, the investors still get nothing even if they have been awarded money. It really does no good at all that people are posting their own views and opinions as FACT when it is nothing but conjecture. Everyone's opinion should be valued as it could lead to further ideas. However, PLEASE, for the sake of clarity for everyone, post your thoughts as precisely what they are - your opinion.

I am glad that we have a contrast of views on the forum and like any market that has buyers and sellers the forum is good for an exchange of views. Whilst we may differ on both views and interpretation of various issues, I also think my views are based on hard facts and not mere conjecture or opinion. El Sery is an Egyptian company but that is ultimately owned and held by IPI and mainly Mr Jurgen and that is a fact, unless there has been a significant shift in the shareholdings which then should have been communicated to investors. A multi-million euro project, and that is what over 500 investors put in to the tune of more than 20m million euros is a big chunk of investment and what is sad is that this project has been held hostage by just one key player, namely Mr Maan. In reality if proper management was applied with both fiduciary duties, due care of directors etc then both the board of El Sery and IPI should have been more open to investors a long long time ago. IPI & El Sery never had proper management structures and construction expertise. Yes , we do not know the precise facts as to how much money has gone into the project and how much is missing but just imagine if there was just large lender (instead of 500 investors), this project would long have been taken over and management kicked out. Yes, you are right in that investors may not get anything back even in a successful legal case against El Sery. But either way, what you will get is access to a very illiquid asset and perhaps missing escrow funds. And maybe a group of investors can also get a third party investor to complete and manage the project, and that should not be underestimated. The bottom line is that El sery should be held accountable to what has happened to our money and if they do not show their cards, they will have little credibility left in the eyes of both the law (in Egypt and Netherlands) and also investors. What we are been faced is that we are indirectly being blackmailed by a party that has fall far short of the commitments to their main pool of investors and have already been in significant breach of contracts with us and are now threatening us that if we seek legal action that we will lose all our money. If a big chunk of our funds is missing from the safety of our escrow in Netherlands, then IPI/El Sery have already broken the law in Netgherlands and put our funds at greater risk elsewhere. This story of a new investor has been the carrot dangling in front of us for over a year now and many investors just do not believe them. What might change is if El sery has a plan B such as trying to complete the resort in a smaller way. I would be happy if I was given an apartment that was a 3-star but was more viable and achievable in arms of completion. In summary, I am an investor like you and would give IPI/El Sery no more than 3 months to come up with facts/evidence etc and a viable plan as to what various options are. In the absence of that I would then prefer to take control (as a group) of the project legally and secure all the assets available. I am sure many of us have better management skills and expertise than El Sery/IPI. Ask any teenager with some basic education today if they were in charge of a construction project would they pay upfront and in advance furniture money to a third party or wait to order and pay towards the end? and you will get your answer as to how bad/poor IPi/El sery have been in even the most basic business principles

[magbed]

Hi everyone.
I'am new on this forum.
Also invested in MABR. I'm worried is that el-sery does not inform us about the current situation. I am still hopeful that the investment will be finish.
I got an invitation from the GIC but did not use their help.
I look for others investors to take action together.

[realinvestor]

Originally Posted by magbed

Hi everyone.
I'am new on this forum.
Also invested in MABR. I'm worried is that el-sery does not inform us about the current situation. I am still hopeful that the investment will be finish.
I got an invitation from the GIC but did not use their help.
I look for others investors to take action together.

Hello fellow MABR investors

I have checked with 3 different Egyptian lawyers and the assessment of our contracts is this: Most if not all MABR contracts , whether they are through IPI or El sery are weak in that they are not sanctioned by the local Egyptian courts in terms of signature verification. Anyone who has dealt with Egyptian property matters ought to know what this means. We only signed our contracts in a non-Egyptian jurisdiction and our contracts really should have been signature-verfied in the EGYPTIAN courts right from the beginning. For any contract to be legally binding and be secure they ought to have their property fully registered and /or their purchase contracts court approved via the signature verification procedure. If not then they are weak. Of course El sery/IPI will not tell this to us. But if they do sell the resort to a third party, and that is what they have been communicating to us, then our contracts will be much weaker, and the new investors could easily have first priority over our apartments if they do buy the resort and also have the resort purchase court-verified. Under this scenario they would probably have first priority and then we would be weak and on the defensive and with the implications that we we would have to whatever terms they impose on us if we wanted our apartments finished. It seems that Seddons. the UK solicitor who did the DD did not recommend this and should have to the investors who went through him. Clearly this is another grey area of potential negligence by the Uk solicitor.

[Eco-Mariner]

95% of projects are deemed unsafe in Egypt because of the statement realinvestor has just made. Clearly these grey areas were never uncovered by the majority of lawyers, British or otherwise.

We cannot call this inept. Maybe it was deliberate from the outset.

Residential investment by foreigners could at first be seen as a risk, however were we agents and professionals deliberately misinformed to secure billions in foreign currency just to get Egyptian projects started and then for the developers not to deliver? If these grey areas were designed only for third party take-overs to pick up the pieces it obviously leaves buyers with nothing?

Time will tell and its fast running out.


Eco-Mariner.

[realinvestor]

Originally Posted by Eco-Mariner

95% of projects are deemed unsafe in Egypt because of the statement realinvestor has just made. Clearly these grey areas were never uncovered by the majority of lawyers, British or otherwise.

We cannot call this inept. Maybe it was deliberate from the outset.

Residential investment by foreigners could at first be seen as a risk, however were we agents and professionals deliberately misinformed to secure billions in foreign currency just to get Egyptian projects started and then for the developers not to deliver? If these grey areas were designed only for third party take-overs to pick up the pieces it obviously leaves buyers with nothing?

Time will tell and its fast running out.


Eco-Mariner.

Dear Eco Mariner

I concur with you that a lot of developments that were sold and marked by foreign developers are insecure if they did not go through the proper procedures namely verifying all contracts via the court signature validation process. So in a way we are both right in that lawyers who claimed that they did the Due diligence did not really do much - except make photocopies of of the building permits etc ...I do not think these great areas were designed by someone. This is a major fault line where foreign developers and lawyers collect fees and revenues upfront without doing their own research etc into the complexities involved. It is precisely this mismatch of the needs of securing the long-term interest of investors versus the short-term needs of developers and lawyers to make profits and fees upfront. You are absolutely right in that time is running out and that time in itself will speak for itself as the real truth unfold

[Cliff123]

Is it possible to go to an Egyptian court and get duel language contracts validated.

Originally Posted by Eco-Mariner

95% of projects are deemed unsafe in Egypt because of the statement realinvestor has just made. Clearly these grey areas were never uncovered by the majority of lawyers, British or otherwise.

We cannot call this inept. Maybe it was deliberate from the outset.

Residential investment by foreigners could at first be seen as a risk, however were we agents and professionals deliberately misinformed to secure billions in foreign currency just to get Egyptian projects started and then for the developers not to deliver? If these grey areas were designed only for third party take-overs to pick up the pieces it obviously leaves buyers with nothing?

Time will tell and its fast running out.





Eco-Mariner.

[magbed]

Is possible to get signature veryfication by egyptian court ? or our contracts are not valid anymore

[magbed]

Originally Posted by fweetas

Hi
Living in Ireland and was wondering if there are many more here in Ireland that invested?
New to this online forum thing but we are in the same boat here.After thinking we made a great investment at MABR we are starting to run out of options in order to get answers. We have been approached by GIC but to be honest were a bit wary of the whole lot now at the moment,

Hi Fweetas,
We living in Drogheda , IRL and we also very worry about our invest. We look for investors from Ireland. Is many of them on this forum?

[realinvestor]

Originally Posted by Cliff123

Is it possible to go to an Egyptian court and get duel language contracts validated.

of course it is the norm that you must have dual-language contracts - one side in Arabic and the other side in the other language - for them to be validated by the Egyptian courts. That is why initially some of the MABR contracts were improper as they were just in English. Like the Zafarana contracts these were very insecure and improper and as IPi found out about their inexperiences and mistakes the later one sin MABR were then dual language and also issued by the egypian company ( El sery) and not by IPI. But the first thing IPI/El Sery/Seddons should have done is after the signing of the purchase agreements, they should have been verified by the courts in Egypt. The mere signing of the dual-language contracts was nit enough as that should have immediately been followed up by ratification and court-verification in Egyptian courts.

[Cliff123]

Is it still possible for an individual investor to go to an Egyptian court and get their contract ratified or does it have to be done by El Sery?

Originally Posted by realinvestor

of course it is the norm that you must have dual-language contracts - one side in Arabic and the other side in the other language - for them to be validated by the Egyptian courts. That is why initially some of the MABR contracts were improper as they were just in English. Like the Zafarana contracts these were very insecure and improper and as IPi found out about their inexperiences and mistakes the later one sin MABR were then dual language and also issued by the egypian company ( El sery) and not by IPI. But the first thing IPI/El Sery/Seddons should have done is after the signing of the purchase agreements, they should have been verified by the courts in Egypt. The mere signing of the dual-language contracts was nit enough as that should have immediately been followed up by ratification and court-verification in Egyptian courts.