EXCLUSIVE: Brazilian social housing investment developer EcoHouse has hit back at claims that it will fail to deliver returns to its thousands of global investors, and maintains that it is fully committed to completing its social housing projects in the South American country.
As many as 800 individual Singaporeans invested in the property investment opportunity, enticed by the promise of up to 20 percent returns in just 12 months – and helping to make it the most popular single overseas property investment in 2011.
However deadlines, revised deadlines modified contracts and amended payment promises came and went, although EcoHouse remains totally adamant that none of its worldwide investors had instigated any legal action as of mid-June 2014.
Deen Bissessar, Chief Operations Officer for EcoHouse, told PropertyGuru: “We are aware of our contractual obligations to our clients and intend to fulfil them in due course. Our clients remain, as they always have, secured by their contract with us and we will honour the same once the terms have been satisfied.
He added: “We have been inundated with investor emails and queries. Unfortunately many of these have remained unanswered due to the nature of the questions; quite simply they are demanding specific, fixed dates upon which they are to receive their payment.
“At present we cannot commit to specific fixed dates and since many investors will not accept anything less, we have left it unanswered until we can provide such a date.”
Commenting on various internet rumours about the whereabouts of high-profile flamboyant Chief Executive Officer Anthony Armstrong-Emery, Bissessar added: “… there tends to be a lot of nonsense that gets floated around.”
To pacify some understandably nervous investors, Bissassar confirmed: “We still operate in Brazil, we are stillbuilding properties and we still will deliver in due course. Where people come up with any other notion is beyond me.
“To reiterate, we have experienced a delay in the completion of our developments, nothing more, nothing less. This is not new news. The projects are still progressing and with each passing day we get closer to the delivery of those units and release of capital and the profits from those operations.
“As a result of those delayed completions and the subsequent extraction of capital and profits from those properties, certain unrelated client payments have been delayed. We are actively working on a solution to correct this is situation and are confident that we will have this all remedied soon.”
As recently as March this year EcoHouse colleacted the prestigious Best Brazilian Project for its Bosque development at the Global MIPIM 2014 awards in Cannes, France.
PropertyGuru has been contacted by a significant number of Singapore-based investors over many months, along with others from elsewhere in Southeast Asia who are considering their positions having taken independent legal advice.
Image: © Andew Batt / PropertyGuru Group 2013: Workers take a break in the hot sun at the Bosque development, being constructed by EcoHouse outside the northeast Brazilian city of Natal.
Andrew Batt, International Group Editor at PropertyGuru Group, edited and wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email andrew@propertyguru.com.sg
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