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By Guardian Market, SLR CFO Metaverse Investment Fund (MIF) manager Shaun Altman hopes to bring a “whole new era in virtual world finance.” The MIF had its first meeting at its headquarters in Theta at 9pm SLT on Friday. The MIF makes some big promises in a world of investment uncertainty. Linden Lab’s banking ban brought nothing less than panic to the marketplace, and the SL Capital Exchange’s investigation of the Sky Power Fund (CAPEX:POW) has brought doubt to resident-run funds. However, the MIF’s website promises complete liquidity within 72 hours if necessary, regardless of amount of money invested. That challenge, combined with the usual promises of transparency and honesty, give the MIF a lot to live up to in the coming months. The MIF functions as an arbitrage fund, although Altman has been tight-lipped about what types of arbitrage investments MIF is participating in. The website shares some insights as to what can be excluded from MIF’s realm of investments, however: “We don't invest with any banks, stock exchanges or any other financial service offered up by a resident within Second Life.” And while the fund promises to do its best and hopes for sustained high-yield, it makes no promises about returns to investors, thus shielding it from the banking ban. Investors are certainly taking notice, as well. According to the February 1, 2008 Financial Report , the fund is now boasting nearly 630,000 in its first week of operations. "I'm pleasd to report to you tonight that the community has heard our message LOUD and CLEAR," said Altman during the shareholder meeting, "This is an AMAZING first week for the Metaverse Investment Fund, and we can't thank you enough for your support of our vision!"
The MIF strongly resembles a closed-end mutual fund, although it can hardly be thought of as being publicly traded because Altman sets the buying and selling prices, as well as commissions. The current price of the fund is L$1.0128 and the commission is set at 3.5% on both buy and sell sides of the transaction. I questioned Altman about those commissions, which are the highest in all of the Second Life capital markets, and he outlined for me the reasoning behind them. The most compelling reason was fund stability, or as Altman put it, “encouraging healthy behaviors - it’s not healthy for someone to show up on Friday, drop a ton of [Linden Dollars] on us, collect profits and cash out Saturday morning. This costs legitimate investors. The commissions make unhealthy behaviors like this impossible. You must leave funds with us for a few weeks to earn a profit.” The financial report on February 1 reported a return on investment of 2.56% to investors, which per the fund’s prospective-like “basics” page was broken down into a 1.28% dividend and 1.28% appreciation in share price, visible in the new price of L$1.0128, up from L$1.00 earlier this week. Altman recommends reinvesting dividends in order to earn compounded profit on investment. I asked him about the possibility of a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP), to which Altman responded, “I’m thinking about solutions for that. It depends on what percentage of dividends is actually reinvested, [and also] how people want to use the system.” I was invited to participate in the MIF by Altman earlier this week and made a token investment of L$100 into the fund. I bought 96 shares with that L$100 (the maximum after commission) and the current value of my portfolio is L$99.10, and L$1.87 of that is in cash from dividends. Altman stresses that this is an evolving project, and asks anyone with questions or concerns to contact him in-world, regardless of potential investment size. Note: Quotes have been altered for grammar. No change of meaning was intended. Numbers were rounded when necessary.
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