|
For SLReports.net Tapering of Regular Dividend Payments May Be Worrisome Sign...
While it has become more common for Publicly Traded Companies to consider parking their unused cash reserves in accounts at the Metaverse Investment Fund(MIF)--if currency arbitrage is something that they choose not to do themselves--the nearly two week gap since the last dividend payment has started to worry some.
Prior to November the MIF had paid a weekly dividend every week since February 8th, 2008, and has boasted a 44.7% return year-to-date. There are a total of L$6,909,197.08 in assets under management and 548 accounts.
In November there were only 3 dividend payments, and so far in December only 2.
Whether the tapering off of dividend payments represents a contraction of the currency trading market, or something more sinister, has not yet been determined.
The recent RL Bernard Madoff ponzi-scheme scandel has brought to light the issues of due diligence that individual and institutional investors need to put forth when investing with a stock or security, and has many on-edge regarding trusting their assets with secretive investment vehicles.
Some have referred to the MIF as a "black hole", if not for a suspected loss of assets, then at least for the lack of transparency in the firm's operations. Fund Manager Shaun Altman has a long and storied history with the Second Life financial community, which includes being the CEO of Cyberland (CYB : WSE), which was the first publicly owned company in SL. Originally CYB(WSE) was listed on the MSE, and later brought to the WSE via a merger of the two exchanges. In an interview for SL-Newspaper back in November Altman scoffed at the idea of bringing MIF to oneof the four exchanges to become publicly traded, stating, "I created MIF precicely to solve the problems created by the people offering up stocks and fake regulation, only to generally crash due to fraud, lack of liquidity etc. We have no interest in joining into the problems that we're trying to correct. We'd take an interest in the regulators if they were real or had any usefulness. In my view though, it's just roleplay regulation. I feel it that it does more harm than good, as it offers up a false sense of security to hear that something is "regulated" when really they're just playing store."
Also at the time Altman had a postive outlook on MIF's ability to weather the downturn in the Second Life economy, stating, "We don't see any data to suggest that virtual world economies will do anything other than continue to grow exponentially in the years ahead." TOP NEWS:
|
