Invest Fair 2010 Experience
I went to the Invest Fair 2010 at Marina Bay Sands last Saturday. The event was jointly organised by ShareInvestor and The Business Times. My purpose there is feel the atmosphere, find out what people are after and just get a little exposure to this side of financial product sales.
As I walked in, was approached constantly by promoters speaking to me about what they are promoting. Not surprising, considering this is a free event and the exhibitors and participants paid the organizers to have a booth there. Main aim is to do promotion and sales.
Two of my friends were involved in the fair, one of them is working in a foreign bank structured warrants department, while the other in a trading education company. Exhibitors and participants includes various ‘education’ companies teaching trading and investment tips for a course fee, land banking, securities brokers, wine investments and financial institutions structuring warrants. One surprise is there are a few companies there that are not in financial or investment businesses, like Pico. Their purpose there is to promote their company and gain exposure; investors invest in their company by buying the shares from the stock exchange.
I will like to share 4 experiences.
First: At Edgeworth Properties Singapore Pte Ltd booth a sales person approached me introducing the company and what they do. She said, “Edgeworth Properties is a developer”; “there are 3 – 5 years between the acquiring vacant land and the actual start of construction”; “time is for the permits and government approvals”; “during this time Edgeworth Properties will sell the land in pockets to investors at a low price, when the company is to start the development, we will buy it back at a higher price” With this I asked, “why will the company want to drive up the cost?” She couldn’t answer and attempt to lead me to sit inside to booth for her to explain. I left due to time constrains, but there may be a satisfactory answer to that. It may be because, the company needs to secure the land and free up the money to purchase other lucrative plots? Though I have heard horror stories about land banking, I have yet to witness it myself. I shall find out more. Hope I can find a sales person equipped to answer my questions.
Second: At the OCBC Securities booth a sales person asked, “do you trade?” I answered, “not really anymore.” He replied, “you should, try it with an OCBC Securities account, a lot of people are making a lot of money now”
Third: AIA booth I was approached by a sales person, who chat me up and asked for details for a survey or lucky draw. I told her I’m in wealth management too and she exclaimed, “oh, that’s not insurance, if you’re in another insurance company I will ask you to join me.” I am actually pretty glad that even insurance sales person recognizes that there is a difference in wealth management. I take care of finances and wealth of my clients.
In conclusion, there are actually a lot of information to be learn from the fair, big area in trading too. I did come across high calibre and factually correct presentations from structured warrants booth and Philips Managed Accounts. However, individuals with no financial background will have to sift through the sales talk and factually wrong information.
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