Investor's home to be auctioned off to cover $12.5 million debts by Ahmed
ERROR RG P4 27.1.1999 Port Head Ltd. was awarded $801,023 against Jacob J. Elkin by the Supreme Court. Due to an error in recording by court staff, The Royal Gazette had incorrectly stated the judgment was in relation to a writ by Isura Soares and Vieira Alves against Kevin W. Simmons.
Creditors of high flying Bermuda-based investor Jacob J. Elkin are auctioning off his Smiths Parish house in an attempt to collect $12.5 million he owes them.
Mr. Elkin has lived in Bermuda for about 20 years. Last February the Supreme Court awarded the Bank of Bermuda $8.23 million against Mr. Elkin. He did not show up in court for the judgment. In a separate judgment Port Head Ltd. was awarded $4.3 million.
Mr. Elkin's house `The Pillars', at 8 Odyssey Drive, was put up for auction on Thursday but was not sold. The five-bedroom house is apparently worth about $1.5 million.
Auctioneer Leonard O. Gibbons Real Estate Ltd. is now awaiting instructions from the creditors on how to proceed.
The bank has refused to comment on how Mr. Elkin, a Canadian citizen, had managed to owe the publicly traded company the money. The Royal Gazette was unable to find any information about Port Head Ltd.
Mr. Elkin is the former president and chief executive officer of Bermuda company IsleInvest Ltd., which was traded on the Alberta Stock Exchange.
Isleinvest was incorporated in Bermuda on December 7, 1995.
The Alberta exchange delisted the company's shares on May 22 last year for failure to maintain the listing requirements. Trading in the shares had been suspended in February.
IsleInvest seems to have gotten into trouble after making an investment in Swiss gold mining claims held by Toronto-based Societe d'Exploration d'Or Helvetique Ltee in 1996. The most significant of the Swiss claims is in the Canton of Graubunden.
IsleInvest was to pay $123,000 and 45,715 IsleInvest common shares for the Swiss claims. IsleInvest also held a 72 percent holding in Maui USA Inc.
Maui was involved in the construction of 228-lot residential property in Kahana, Maui.
On February 26, 1998 Mr. Elkin and the company's directors resigned from IsleInvest. The company was in negotiations over restructuring of its 38 million Swedish kroner bond debt to D. Carnegie AB and Deutsche Bank. The bond was due on January 23 1998.
The loan was worth $5.5 million at the time it was negotiated with Morgan Grenfell Asset Management in 1996. A warrant issue was arranged with Russ Oil & Technology. The warrants were to convert to IsleInvest shares and expire in 1998, with the proceeds designed to repay the Carnegie loan.
In addition to its investments in gold mining and real estate, the company was also targeting young companies.
In October 1996 Deutsche Morgan Grenfell fired fund manager Peter Young, who was involved with Russ Oil & Technology. Mr Young was accused of fraud. The centre of a fraud probe was Russ Oil.
At the time Mr. Elkin denied knowledge of who was behind Russ Oil.
"We did not know who the clients were,'' Mr. Elkin told Bloomberg News in 1996. "We just assumed that if they're clients of Morgan Grenfell, that's good enough for us.''