There’s several companies doing cold calling at the moment offering discounted share acquisition in the pre-IPO for Alipay, or more correctly Ant Financial Services.
Watermark Securites, New York
International Wealth Accounts , Hong Kong, internationalwealthaccounts.com
Essence Securities, China ( there seems to be a legitimate company called Essence Securities but there may also be an impersonation. Be careful)
JPR Global, Japan
Equity Consults equityconsults.comEquity Consultancy
Alliance Consults, Hong Kong
Equity Securities
Prudential Securities , New York
Ideal Services DC , Canada
The Adam Group
and no doubt more…
They usually run along the lines of something like they tell you that you can buy at the current share price of $12.50 (but they also say they bought a whole heap at a lower price and will also give you the shares at this lower price too), and that then this will be worth something ranging from $35 to $160 at the listing day, depending on which company you are talking to !
Watermark Securities couldn’t even say how many shares will be issued in the IPO, which makes you wonder how can they know what the shares will be worth?? (although one call they did say they owned 20,000,000 shares out of a total of 50,000,000 , because they have such a good relationship with Alibaba! BS )
If you send your money to some faraway jurisdiction on little more than a promise from someone you’ve never heard from before, Don’t expect to see it again.
Further discussions can be found :
https://www.sharetrader.co.nz/showthread.php?11109-Alipay-ipo-scam
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/alipay-ipo.4118128/#.WvkooCC-nIU
also more thoughts here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-02-02/an-ant-financial-ipo-got-you-excited-not-so-fast
and then you should just Google : Ant Financial IPO and read everything on the first page Before you even think about doing anything else.
Can anyone confirm that Charlotte Investments in Hong Kong is a legitimate company dealing in Alipay IPO?
They are wanting to sell me Alipay shares at US9.50 per share.
Well, can’t even find them on page 1 of a Google search so that’s a bit odd, if they have been around for a while.
What’s their website? Check it’s age at whois.com and compare it to how long they say they have been around.
Are they suggesting that they bought a bunch of shares already and are offering them to you at a discount?
Did they cold call you?
Are they regulated with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures commission? sfc.hk
Has anyone there got a professional profile on Linkedin?
Check everything before sending any money.
The internet is an open forum, anyone can post anything they want. The problem is there are good and bad companies in any business. If they are a registered company ask to see their registration number and see how long they been around. As far as the phone numbers your being called from, most places use the internet to make calls its 2018 people.
I’ve had International Wealth Accounts calling me trying to sell me shares in this pre-IPO. They say they are in Hong Kong.
Calls always come from a Sydney number (02) 9119 2586.
They don’t even know where the IPO will be launched in yet, there’s no PDS, and the share contract just says Alipay shares, when it should be Ant Financial.
Smarmy, British accented sales person.
I’m predominately based In New Zealand and I do a lot of international business.
I’ve been working with a wealth management firm based in the UK but with offices globally for the last couple of years. When my broker calls me and im in NZ the telephone number can appear as a NZ number or Australian number
My brokers explanation is that they use VOIP software which routes through the cheapest telephone lines at the time of the call.
So that might be the case.
i spoke to a swarmy british sales person, from hong kong, name of phillipe springfield, of charlotte investments. sounded dodgy. anyone know more about this dude?
yes, swarmy, fancy name….fits the normal descrition of the scammers (but of course, there could be real people like that in the investing world).
Though not the Ant Financial IPO, there’s another company just called me about the Saudi’s Aramco IPO.
They’re called Orion Asset Management, in New York.
Ant Financial is huge, recent valuation is $150 billion! They are owned by Alibaba and control Alipay which again is huge! Alipay is the worlds largest mobile and online payments platform. As an active investor I dont think you should be down playing this company. I was fortunate enough to get involved in Alibaba when they went public in 2014 and I will be getting involved in Ant Financial which will list in Hong Kong later this year.
Thanks for your comments David.
We’re not focused on whether Ant Financial is a good investment or not, but rather the extremely high risk of making an investment through a company you’ve never heard of, that cold calls you, and expects you to send them a large sum of money with no guarantee it will go to where you are thinking it is going to go, and from where you will likely have no recourse to get justice if things go wrong.
If you were going to participate in the IPO/ pre-IPO, how would you do it?
I dont think you should be slandering the name of Essence Securities. This is a real Chinese financial firm and a rather large one! They have been around since 2006, I have personally had an account with them for the past 7 years and I can confirm they are involved in the Ant Financial IPO. Ant Financial is owned by Alibaba Group Holdings. Alibaba is Chinese owned, Essence Securities are Chinese and the Ant Financial IPO is going public in Hong Kong, makes sense right? Also Temasek Holdings who are a state owned Singaporean financial firm are heavily invested in Ant Financial and I can confirm Essence Securities share holders involved in the IPO are deaing with a Singporean handling agent with a Singaporean bank! You should remove this post regarding any wrong doings between Essence Securities of China and their involvment in the Ant Financial IPO.
https://kr-asia.com/alibabas-ant-financial-raises-12b-in-pre-ipo-latest-funding-round/
Well, they threw up some red flags..
First they cold call me, claiming I took some marketing call months ago.
They used a name that I used and turns up on several scammers cold calling lists.
Two different people called me, or at least they had different names but the same voice…Stephen Richards, and Clark Logan. They/him gave me different names of the marketing company that supposedly called me.
The websites are now unavailable (but that may just be a hitch. It happens..)
One website domain, essencesecurities.com was only registered this year and under private registration.
They say they are in Shenzen but the telephone code they give is +852, Hong Kong.
Essence Securities are registered with the China Securities Regulatory Commission and appear to be legitimate.
Could be that someone is impersonating the real company.
I’d say this is high risk to accept an offer from a cold call company, that also has operators that appear to change their names.
If you know the company from previous dealings, that may be a different story.
great! and how exactly will you get involved? i would like to buy IPO alipay shares. but how with out maybe getting scammed?
Ring a stockbroker who can deal with Alipay/Ant Financial.
Research online yourself for a broker who is able to do so. They may be overseas, or maybe in Australia.
You’ll be able to check reviews, how long they have been around, their accreditations. You’ll see that legitimate brokers are open with their information.
Ask at forums such as the very good aussiestockforums.com (not related to us)
https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/sme/jack-mas-ant-financial-is-looking-to-raise-9-billion-ahead-of-its-ipo/1129074/