Kirberts finance advice and news

Laurie Cooper

One of the advantages of investing in Panama is the government’s provision on law for assets protection this entity has been created by the law 32 of 1927. Aside from the assets under the private interest foundation which allows the natural owner to control his assets under the name of the foundation, Panama also provides law on Panama Anonymous Corporation. In fact, Panama is the only country in the world who allows such anonymous existence of corporation for the singular purpose of operating through the use of actual shares of stocks instead of actual name of the natural owner. With the Panama Anonymous Corporation, the state does not generally know the owner behind the corporation aside from the fact the persons involved in the corporation have the shares.

There are various advantages for establishing Panama Anonymous Corporations. One is that the natural owner will have full control of the assets of the corporations that the state or the other persons involved may not know of. The attorneys may know who the owners of the corporation are but they would not know to whom did the owner transfers the shares to. The certificate of stocks of the corporation needs not to have names of the owners or the bearer. What is carries is the number of the certificate. Second advantage is that the corporation is not subject to taxes and does not necessarily have tax returns files in Panama. The certificate of stocks are not also limited to be in Panama but can also be carried abroad.

The Panama Anonymous Corporations can still function as a legal entity in Panama. However, it does not require registry in the Public Office in Panama because the owners and the members of the corporation are not necessarily recorded and can even be transferred easily. What the corporation needs to do is to contact an attorney that will legalize the operation by identifying the members and the directors. However, among the names and directors, the attorney cannot identify who is the real owner of the Panama anonymous corporation.

As a legal entity, the Panama anonymous corporation can own a property from locations that it chose worldwide. If the corporation wishes to sell, it just has to transfer the corporation’s share together with bills signed by the directors of the corporation stating the sale made. Aside from properties, the Panama anonymous corporation can also acquire other assets like cars, equipments, jewelry, and can even own bank account, all without revealing the real names of the natural owners. This way, there is high protection of assets under the anonymous name. But the transactions can be monitored by the attorneys. The required signatories should bear a name which the attorneys will know but will not be revealed if it the natural owner of the corporation. In essence, the Panama anonymous corporation is controlled by the anonymous owner. But the transactions and operations can be assisted by attorneys who ensure that the transactions are legal and valid. A strong communication of the nominated person of the corporation and the attorney is required to make the operation of the corporation possible.

About the Author: Laurie Cooper, of Cpanama Real Estate Corp., is an expert on Panama real estate. For more information, please visit http://www.cpanama.com.

Gary Wollin

A dog with a large piece of meat in his mouth crossed a bridge over a river on his way home. Looking down, he saw his reflection in the water below. Thinking it to be another dog with another piece of meat he let go his own and dived at the other dog in order to get his piece of meat as well. When he opened his mouth to grab the other dog’s piece of meat, he lost his own piece of meat.

Moral: Greed begets nothing.

As a financial advisor with almost 50 years of experience, I have seen this sad circumstance over and over and over again. I am sure that advisers with far less experience than I have also seen people make this exact same type of big mistake.

What big mistake am I talking about?

Someone with a well thought out, well constructed investment portfolio which was created to withstand the test of time will read an article in a newspaper or a financial magazine, or see a story on television, or hear about some fad investment from a friend, and will want to dump some or all of his classic holdings for the possibility that something else will grow faster. That’s the big mistake I am talking about.

Please allow me to share a real-life example with you. Some years ago, a major pharmaceutical company hired me to speak to a large group of physicians about the outlook for the economy and the stock market. At many informational meetings and seminars, companies will sponsor an outside speaker to break up the day for the attendees and to garner goodwill with their audience.

After my talk, a large number of these physicians approached me to ask whether they should sell their portfolio of blue-chip stocks and buy the very speculative dotcom investments that were presently getting all the press. Of course, I said “no”.

In effect, they were asking me if I would recommend abandoning a sound strategy that had worked for the past 50 or 60 years in favor of the latest investment fad. I was very surprised to see how many of these physicians thought that my advice was far too conservative. They were willing to risk a great deal of their life savings for the possibility of some short-term advantage.

I strongly believe that the farther you get from a plain-vanilla investment strategy, the better chance you have of losing your money. Boring is good. Also, when you reach a certain age, your major investment goal should be wealth preservation not fast growth.

Here is the bottom line advice whether you are an investor or a financial adviser to investors: don’t get greedy.

Be satisfied with what you have or you may lose it. You want proof? Think back a few years when all you saw on television were people complaining about how they had lost most or all of their life savings by investing in high-risk dotcom companies that had no sales or earnings.

That bird in your hand is still worth two in the bush.

Gary Wollin is a Warren Buffett style investment advisor with 48 years of Wall Street experience. He has been regularly featured in The Wall Street Journal and New York Times. He writes and speaks on sales, customer loyalty, and the stock market. http://www.garywollin.com

NEW YORK - Want to purchase newspaper stocks? You should see an analyst. Trouble is there aren’t many around anymore.

COVINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Two lawyers accused of defrauding their clients in a diet-drug settlement of $65 million were sent back to jail Thursday after a jury deadlocked and a federal judge declared a mistrial….

NEW YORK (AP) — Soaring fuel costs are taking a few of the celebration out of this holiday weekend….

NEW YORK (AP) — A hedge fund cheat who tried to fake his own death and spent nearly a month as a fugitive told a judge Thursday that he really did try to commit suicide while on the run, saying he thought it would be better to do himself in than turn himself in….

Brian Hill

With a turbulent stock market and a real estate market in serious decline, it definitely makes sense to seek out alternative investments. One possibility that many wealthy individuals overlook is making investments in private equity. This simply means investing in a company that is privately held rather than in a public company that offers its stock to the public over a stock exchange. People who make these sorts of investments are sometimes referred to as “angels,” a term that originated in show business, to describe individuals who provided financial backing for theatrical productions. It is now widely used to describe an investment in any business venture, particularly start-up companies. Many of today’s most successful technology companies received their initial capital from wealthy individuals.

An angel investor is sometimes called an accredited investor. That is defined as an individual who has a net worth of at least a million dollars not including the value of their residence.

Angel investing is riskier than investing in public companies because many times the companies seeking capital are early stage enterprises without significant cash flow or earnings, and it is difficult to predict how profitable the company is going to be. A significant number of early stage enterprises fail, so there is a very real possibility in any investment of this type that you will lose all of the capital you invested. The other significant element of risk is liquidity: private equity investments typically must be held until the company is sold or goes public, which could be 2, 3, or 4 years in the future. You can’t simply log onto your investment account and put in a “sell” order as you can with a publicly traded security. The upside potential is extremely attractive, however. It’s not unusual for angel investors to earn a 50% compounded return on their money. And angels also get the satisfaction of watching a small, unknown company become large and successful—and knowing they contributed to its success.

Angel investing is definitely an activity for high net worth individuals. Although the amount of investment in any one deal varies widely, it is quite high, $20,000-$100,000 or more. The average investment in a single company by an angel is $78,000.

How do you get started in angel investing? There are angel investor organizations, called angel networks, in many cities in the US, and not just in traditional centers of venture capital investment such as the San Francisco bay area, or Boston. Joining one of these and attending their monthly meetings is a good way to see how angel investments are made. The investment can be made as a group to spread the risk or on an individual basis, each angel conducting their own due diligence and deciding whether to invest or how much to invest. By becoming part of an angel group, it allows you to network with other angels and learn from their experience. To find an angel group in your area, contact your local chamber of commerce, entrepreneur organization, or small business development center. You could also contact the business editor of your local newspaper.

Are you interested in increasing your net worth through investing? Brian Hill is the author of several nonfiction books including “Attracting Capital from Angels,” and Inside secrets to Venture Capital.” In his spare time Brian enjoys gourmet grilling.

NEW YORK -The Dow rose on Thursday, a day after the blue-chip average entered a bear market, on relief payrolls data was not as weak as a few had feared and with another record oil price boosting energy shares.