CBI LAKE HOUSE UPDATES

November 29, 2024

So we tried to sell this property over the spring through fall of this year. We had one interested party get to the point of making a “tire kicking” offer, but when we countered them with acceptance of just about all of their proposed terms, they decided to walk away. While we have had a lot of viewings of our listing, we are not getting any solid offers. This property is not on the Lake, and it is proximate to the golf course as it could be viewed as backing onto the course, as it borders the outside of it. But it is not part of the golf course. So there are many different visions of how this property could and should be developed. Unfortunately, in recent years, there has been a lot of land around the town that has been listed and offered for sale. So while this property is within town and close to the lakefront, it isn’t lakefront. So it has some unique marketing issues that have clearly limited the interest of developers in the property. We will look at the property in the spring and hopefully find someone that is willing and interested in developing it.

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

This property is currently listed for sale. We are listed with a brokerage in Red Deer. We have some interest in the property but no final sale yet. Once this property is sold, we intend to do a distribution to investors. We previously did a distribution to your group, when we received monies on a failed sale. We have your contact details and the system to do a distribution. So we will be in touch via this website or an email, to inform you when we are able to do a final distribution. Your patience is appreciated. If your mailing address changes, again, please send an email to Jackie@mcglaw.ca so we can update our records. Please do not call us or email us seeking individual updates. We do not have the resources to do so. We will post any new information here. If you do not see an update, it is because there has not been a change in our situation. We are listed for sale. We will not post another update until we have a sale.

  • We have provided all of our investors with email updates in the past couple years. We will continue to do so. We have this property listed for sale with Calgary commercial realtors. The commercial realtors will notify us when there is sufficient interest in the property to warrant selling and at that time we will notify all investors via email, and you will get a distribution. If you relocate, that is fine, so long as you let us know if you change your email contact information. We will initially reach out via email and then proceed from there to deal with a distribution at the appropriate time.

  • We do not have this property listed for sale. We tried to sell it in 2021 and were eventually informed by the commercial realtors retained that the market was very soft and there was a glut of supply of lands in the area. They were recommending a drastic price reduction to get the land sold. We were advised that we would likely do better waiting another year or two for the market to adjust as the world gets a better grasp on addressing the COVID virus and its variants. As the world opens up in the next couple years, we were advised that we could expect to get a better price than if we sold now. The cost of waiting is nominal, compared to the expected price we were told we could possibly get in another year or two. So we are waiting to do so.

    I know that many people are frustrated with the wait and the costs. Unfortunately, this is land that you own and not a publicly traded share, so there is no market here. If we were to sell today, you could expect a distribution at current value of the lands of about $900.00 for every $10,000.00 you invested. So while there is no market for your shares, I am willing to propose the following. If anybody is no longer interested in holding your shares, please let us know and we will see if there are any other investors willing to buy your shares. We will help you facilitate that transaction. We neither recommend nor oppose anybody selling at this time. We give you no advice or recommendation on what will happen in the future, as we cannot predict it. But we were told that if we sold the lands today, net of realtor’s commissions, you could expect a distribution of about $900.00 for every $10,000.00 you originally invested. No guarantees, but that was the last advice from the realtors. The market may get better, or it could get worse. The decision we made based on the advice of the realtors was to hold for another couple years in hopes the price will improve. The cost to do so is relatively nominal. But we understand a lot of people just want to close a registered account where this is held. If so, then we can try to find someone that is willing to make you an offer to acquire your shares. So if a price per unit based on the above does not make sense to you, based on your carrying and administration costs, then you can make your own informed decision. And we cannot guarantee we will find someone interested in buying your shareholder interest, but we will try to facilitate that for you if we find interested parties. So we are waiting to try to sell in the future for more and that will increase your distribution amount if the market improves. But as there are no guarantees, we do want people to understand the relative value of their shares and you can go from there. We have received some advice from investors that do not wish to carry their administrative costs and wish to simply write off their investment. That is up to you. Again, we don’t have people asking us to buy more shares, but lots of people asking to sell their shares. We cannot do a distribution until the lands are sold. We thank you for your patience.

  • We had the property listed for sale recently. The market conditions are not currently condusive to helping your group maximize the best price. Our commercial realtors informed us that there is a lot of product currently for sale in the Sylvan Lake area and they were recommending that to sell now we would have to drop our list price. We have used previous monies lost by the two failed purchase agreements to cover the property taxes and maintenance costs in the summer to ensure we are bylaw complaint. Those costs range between $9,000.00 to $10,000.00 per year, depending upon the taxes. The last deposit proceeds were used to cover the costs of the 2020 property taxes and the 2021 summer maintenance costs. We have arranged for a short term loan to cover the annual carrying costs of this property, as we do not have any funds in trust to do so. This covers the costs of the property taxes and the maintenance fees. This is a loan with an arms length party, at the interest rate of 7%, without compounding - it is the penalty rate charged by the town for late payment of property taxes. We have some class member interest in this parcel of land, but we do not have any offers for consideration at this time. We thank you for your patience. We have determined the best course of action is to wait for COVID restrictions to ease further, at which time we hope that stronger demand and interest in this type of property will emerge and provide us with some better options to maximize a return for investors. The general view of this here is that if we use this loan to cover the costs for a year or two, we will be able to more than recoup that based on a projected future sales price when COVID-19 reaches a point that it is considered endemic and not a pandemic. Our commercial realtors recommended we pull the listing and advise us that they believe the market price wil be better for us in the future.

  • Prior to April 5, 2020, the purchaser informed us they were not able to secure the financing necessary to waive conditions. The sale fell apart and the buyer lost the non-refundable deposit. We were obviously dealing with COVID issues at the time we received that news. While this last buyer was not able to proceed, it is not because the project had become less viable. In fact, there was a lot of work done by prior potential buyers, and there is a lot of interest in this project proceeding and succeeding. We have been contacted already by another interested group who are putting together an offer. We will report in due course, once we have the property sold again. At the time the sale to this purchaser failed, we only received the first deposit that was non-refundable. Those were sufficient proceeds that they will cover the property taxes due in 2020. We will be looking at our options to sell the property once issues with COVID-19 are better under control.

  • I can inform you that the last advice we have received is the current buyer remains in their due diligence period and we still have a conditional sale. The buyer has until April 5, 2020 to waive their conditions. If they waive, we have a firm sale that should close in June of 2020. If they do not waive, they will forfeit the non-refundable deposit. In the last communication with the buyer, they have informed us they still intend to close on purchase this year, but they will not close early. So until we advise you otherwise, this property remains conditionally sold with our anticipation that later this year, in the summer, we will hopefully be doing your final distribution.

  • We can confirm that we now have a conditional sale and the deposits for the sale of the Lakehouse property. We remain hopeful that conditions will be waived in early 2020 and we hope to close middle of 2020. Please look for updates on this website or by email in about June of 2020. If we are closing, we expect to have cheques issued in about the middle to end of June of 2020. If we do not close, we won’t have anything to issue, but we will post that on our website. This will be our final distribution if this sale proceeds.

  • As you all appreciate, we had the property sold, but the sale fell through as a result of the purchaser passing away just prior to the closing date and the property was returned to us as per the terms of prior agreement with that purchaser. That was unfortunate. We do not currently have the property listed with a realtor. We have been informed that a prospective group may be presenting us with an unsolicited offer for the property. If so, we will update you if the offer is viable, and agreeable. Otherwise, the taxes are paid, the property is preserved and we are currently looking for the best opportunity to maximize return to investors.

  • I am now in a position that I can update you all on the status of our settlement. In January of 2018, we put together a new deal to try to allow the original purchaser that lost this property in the deal that failed in October of 2017, an opportunity to try to acquire it. As per the agreement we made back in January of 2018, we have now been required to take back the property, as the purchaser failed to payout the Vendor take back mortgage prior to January 31, 2019. The vendor take back mortgage was our security to get paid from the original closing date back from October of 2017, which this same purchaser failed to close upon back in October of 2017. The transfer back and vendor take back mortgage were our security to protect our investor group in getting paid. This purchaser was not able to close. Our due diligence has determined that the Investor did not actually get a new or updated Development permit. So the land has the same status it did when it was sold to the purchaser.

    We are currently exploring some alternate options with other purchasers. We have been contacted by a new purchaser that is familiar with this land and we may have a new sale shortly. The intention is to find a new purchaser that will enable us to ensure that investors get no less as compared to what we were supposed to get if the first purchaser had actually acquired the property.

    Please do not call us and ask for individual updates and please do not email us for individual updates. To be fair to everyone, we will only send updates to everyone at the same time and that will be posted on the webpage for Lakehouse and we will send out an email by blind copy to all Lakehouse investors. As we warned you, my new website will be up shortly and you will be redirected to it if you inadvertently go to the old website. But going forward, updates will be posted on the new website when it is up.

    We want you to all understand that we are as frustrated with this situation as you all should be. This purchaser took up a considerable amount of our time and energy, as he kept asking for delays and extensions, and then failed to close the original deal and finally the corporate purchaser could not close and pay us out on maturity of our mortgage. But the deal was structured to ensure that our investor group would not be prejudiced by the failure of the Purchaser to close. That is why we dealt with the purchaser again, despite him failing to close on the original deal. And more importantly, we preserved the asset.

    We are now looking to mitigate your loss and hope to have more positive news shortly. When we have a new sale, that is unconditional, we will share that news with you. Again, your patience is appreciated.

  • We currently hold a vendor take back mortgage on the property. The potential purchaser needs to pay that out by the end of this month. If the purchaser does not do so, we have a transfer back of title that we can register in order to put the property back in our corporation’s name, as a result of the purchaser’s failure to close. If the purchaser does comply, we will have completed the sale to the purchaser and will then be in a position to make the second and final payment to investors. The list of people below in the November 12, 2018 update relate to people for whom we have payment, but they have not cashed their cheques, or they were returned to our offices. Those cheques must be cancelled because they are now stale dated. If you are one of those people, your first payment will be included with your second payment. We urge you to look at the list below and let us know if we don’t have your contact information because your trust cheque was not cashed. Please email jackie@invictusllp.ca if your name is listed below and we will ensure we get your correct address and verify your identity, so we can remit payment to you.

    If the purchaser closes, as we anticipate. We will be doing a distribution by March of this year. We will let you know via email and website update if that is to occur. We appreciate your patience.

  • We are currently in a situation where we have a mortgage and caveat on title to the property with the potential purchaser. He has until April of 2019 to pay us, or we have a transfer back and take back the property and would have to then look to try to sell it to someone else. That is highly unlikely to occur, as the purchaser has been putting a lot of money into this project and doesn’t want to lose it. So we are earning interest at above market rates, while we wait on this purchaser to close.

    Most of you cashed your cheques from the first installment. Some of you are aware of the cheques but didn’t get them. And some of you have not been responsive at all. It is not as simple as just cancelling trust cheques 6 months later, as that is too rigid to timelines. My current intent is to send out the first installment along with the second installment, once that final payment comes, which is in about 5 more months. So your patience is appreciated.

    The following people have not cashed their cheques. If you see your name, please email me directly at kevin@invictusllp.ca and give me your past address, your current address, your share certificate number and number of shares, so I can verify you. Please also send me a copy of picture identification, so I can corroborate who you are. A driver’s license will suffice. Then we can clean up the contact information for the final distribution. I am still looking for:

    Derek Alves, Jerome Bcchus, Dennis Charbonneau, Joe Clarkin, Wendy Dowling, Chi Anne-Lore, Dave Galbiati, Yolande Gerber, Juan G Gomez, Alice Graham, Barjinder Grewal, Rajani Gurung, Richard & Elaine Horner, Judy Johnston, Karen Keveryga, Harvey H. Kohls, Jalal Kureshi, Jules J. Labrecque, Arthur Lambert & Kathryn Story, Mark Laubman, Gerald Leighton, Shauna Lowry, Jatinder Machhiana, Mike Mack, Lorne Matheson, Blair McDonald, Thomas McGuire, Dan Miller, Carlos Alberto, Edmund Lam, An Ngo, John Ollmann, Farhan Qureshi, Darren Sagan, Audrey Smith, Darlene Smith, Lindsey Stephenson, Milford Taylor, Shannon Taylor, Peter Wardell, Erna Weik, Cam Woo, Shaojun Wu, 1043944 Alberta Ltd., 128807 Alberta Ltd. 794620 Alberta Ltd., 946 Alberta Inc., Kyland Investment Management Inc., West Terra Holdings Ltd.

    For most of the above group, there will be additional legal expenses attributed to your accounts for the costs of location. There is one person where the initial distribution was sent to their prior known address, which will not be charged additional expense. But for everyone else listed above, understand that if we cannot locate and confirm you, you will not receive your funds. And there is going to be additional expense here for trying to locate for you. If you are one of the above, PLEASE READ WHAT I ASK YOU TO EMAIL ME, AND DO SO. Please do not call us as that is not productive. We require written corroboration of who you are and your entitlement, in order to deal with you.

    We look forward to resolving this with final distribution in 2019, when the purchaser makes the final payment.

  • We mailed out our initial proceeds cheques and I know some of you have not received them, as you have let us know that. When we get the cheques back, we will be able to redirect them to you. Until they are not cashed for 6 months, we have to wait for return from the mail, in order to deal with that, given these are trust cheques and we have conditions on what we can do. We ask for your patience. I am going to list below the names for cheques we have had returned and ask for these people to contact us. If your name is not listed below, we had an address and sent out a cheque and it is not returned yet. If we get it back, we will seek to contact you.

    The major distribution will be made when the buyer pays out the vendor take back mortgage. That may be some time from now, so we should have the issues with people that claim they didn’t get a distribution cheque from the first distribution cleared up by then.

    If you filed an OPT OUT, then you will not be participating in this settlement. We have had a couple people that opted out of our litigation ask us about participation. You are not entitled to do so if you sent us an opt out.

    We ask for your continued patience as we sort this out.

    Currently, we are looking for the following people:

    Sandra Andrews, George & Shirley Little, Doreen beeston, Lili Diao, Joy Dempsey, Walter Tychnowicz, Lisette Cameron, Helene Crane, Dave Galbiati, Dana Valaydon, Alice Graham, Hao Cun, John Ollmann, Lorne Matheson, Jenny Cherviakoff, Cuong Tang, Richard & Elaine Horner, Kim Kandora, Jal Kureshi, Arthur and Kathryn Lambert/Story, Steve O’Donohoe, 1043944 Alberta Ltd., Erna Weik,

    If you are any of the above, please contact me at Kevin@invictusllp.ca – we had mailing addresses for everyone else. We tried to get the defendant group to assist us with giving us more information to locate you, but did not get any response. We tried several times. So if you are listed above, email me and I will get you to verify your entitlement to be part of our class distribution and we will sort that out.

    For anybody else that is not listed above, if you don’t have your cheque, it was mailed out and it hasn’t been returned. So if you don’t have a cheque yet, email me your current address and when the cheque comes back, we will redirect it. If we don’t get it back, you will have to wait for a few more months for us to be able to cancel it and reissue. And in any event, we will get it all sorted before the final distribution.

    We thank you again for your patience.

  • I am pleased to report that we have successfully arranged for the sale of the Lakehouse property. Cheques were mailed today to investors to return any deposits made in full, and a shareholder pro rata distribution of net proceeds. There will be a future distribution related to this sale, when a vendor take back mortgage is paid out. We thank you for your patience. This future payout will be more substantial than this first one, which is simply a distribution from the deposits. You should receive cheques in the next couple weeks. If you do not, please contact us.

    If your last name is any of the following and you were an investor in Lakehouse, please email me at kevin@invictusllp.ca as I do not have a mailing address for you, despite attempts to locate you. I have to be generally vague, as we have had people try to participate in this lawsuit settlement who were not actual investors within it.

    Kureshi Weik Lambert/Story O’Donoghoe Little Alberta Numbered corporation

    If any of you are one of those investors, contact me and we will get confirmation you were an investor and we will deal with getting your address for distribution.

  • We do not provide T5’s, or documents you need for income tax related to any shares you held in any CBI corporations. We didn’t issue the CBI shares, have no control over them, we didn’t zero them for value and so we cannot help you with that part. Please direct all your inquiries to Olympia Trust if you held shares with them that were zeroed. Or alternatively, speak to your accountant. We post this as many people continue to contact us asking for these documents. We have said this a variety of times, so we hope everyone understands that we have just settled your lawsuit and have settlement proceeds. Currently, your settlement proceeds are an interest in land, and you will get a payout of cash, via cheque, when the land sells. That is distinct from your investment vehicle documents. Please do not contact us to clarify this further, as we cannot. Again, any information you need will come from your accountant and if the accountant needs anything, they can contact CBI about the original investment. We thank you for your patience.

  • We have title to this property, currently held in the name of a settlement corporation. The property is currently listed for sale. The participating investor class will be receiving updates via email. We are only updating via email. We ask for your patience, as all future progress in this matter is confidential and will be sent via email.

  • We are pleased to announce the litigation involving the Lakehouse project has been successfully resolved. The plaintiff class of investors has been verified and we have them incorporated into the new settlement corporation as shareholders. Confidential information related to this settlement will be sent to the shareholder class, which will occur in the next several weeks. We ask for your patience as we need to put together the options for shareholders, who will decide what to do. Please look for updates on this webpage, but also expect to be contacted in the near future when we call a shareholder meeting. We will be sending that notification out by email.

    Due to the volume of calls and number of investors, we ask that you do not call our offices for updates on when the meeting will be called. You will be notified in writing when it is called if you are a class participant. If you received the notice of settlement approval in 2015, then you will receive the notice. Again, and to be clear, the notice will be sent out by email and it will also be put on our website.

    We received everyone’s contact information from the CBI Group and sent a notification out to the mail and e-mail addresses for everyone the CBI Group identified as being an investor in the Lakehouse project. If for any reason you did not receive the notice of settlement approval originally, it is likely due to the contact information which was provided to us being out of date at the time we received it. If you never received any prior letter or notice, but you are an investor in the Lakehouse project, you can send us your proof of ownership and updated contact information, by email, to info@invictusllp.ca so that we may update our investor records. We will not reply to confirm that we received your email, but we will update all records for all investors that were verified to be class participants. We thank you for your patience and look forward to assisting you in crystallizing some value from this investment for you.

  • We are pleased to report to investors that we have started to populate the Lakehouse Settlement Corporation with shareholders. We have a few people for whom we have questions and so you may receive an email or phone call from us.

    For those investors who invested through Olympia Trust as an RRSP eligible investment, please note that your shares in the Settlement Corporation will not be in an RRSP. Class Members’ investment in the CBI Lakehouse investment was lost. We are issuing new shares in a new corporation based on your investment in the CBI Lakehouse investment pursuant to a court approved settlement. It is therefore not a “transfer” of your investment.

    With respect to the ultimate dealing with the Lakehouse property, you will be informed of available options and shareholders will have the opportunity to determine the best way to move forward.

    We are also currently scheduled to be in court on March 22nd, 2016, to seek an Order requiring the Lakehouse property be delivered to investors at $5,100,000.00 as the purchase price, as the property was sold to investors for an acquisition cost of $2,200,000.00 and investors also paid an assignment fee of $2,900,000.00 for that right to buy the property at the option price. That determination by the court will be important in setting our cost base, going forward, so we can try to avoid having to pay capital gains taxes on the eventual sale of the Lakehouse Property. The defendants wanted to sell the property for $1.00, which would impact the taxes to be paid by class members. We are attempting to protect the class members and look forward to setting notice of a meeting once the title transfer issues are sorted out.

    We appreciate that the settlement has taken some time, but it has been necessary to protect your interests. We will be providing additional updates in the coming weeks.

  • We have now obtained access to the minute books for Lake House Capital Ltd. and Lakehouse Investments Ltd. in order to verify shareholder records. This is an ongoing process and is critical to ensure that investors’ contributions will be properly reflected in the new settlement corporation.

    We are also working with litigation counsel for the defendants to finally get title transferred to the settlement corporation. That is an ongoing process and we do not yet have an explanation for the delay by the Defendants on completing that step. Title will be transferred to the new corporation free of all financial encumbrances, except for an $85,000 charge owed to the architect.

    We continue to receive emails asking us if the shares of the new corporation will be held at Olympia trust or inquiring about Olympia trust accounts. Please note that this action and settlement is not related to Olympia trust. If you have questions related to Olympia Trust, please deal with your accountant or a tax professional to make decisions about whether or not to close that account.

    To be clear, new shares will be issued from the settlement corporation to participating investors. We are advised by the Defendants’ legal counsel that we will get access to the shareholder register to complete that clean up so we can finally issue shares.

    We ask for investors’ patience while we work through the records to ensure everyone’s interest is properly reflected in the new settlement corporation, and to ensure that no excluded parties are included in the settlement.

  • We are in the process of transferring over the Lakehouse property to the settlement corporation. We are also in the process of confirming each investor’s investment in the Lakehouse corporations so that we may properly transfer your interest to the settlement corporation. We are doing this by reviewing the original minute books of the Lakehouse corporations and cross-referencing this with the information that class members have provided to us. As many investors have only provided partial information with respect to their investments, we have to be thorough to ensure that class members’ investments are properly reflected in the new corporation.

    To be clear, while we refer to “transferring” the class member’s interest, in reality we are issuing new shares of a new corporation to class members based on their investment. For example, if a class member invested $30,000, they will receive $30,000 shares valued at one (1) dollar per share.

    For those class members who invested through Olympia Trust, we have heard from several of you that you have received letters from Olympia Trust stating that your investment within your RRSP is now worth $0.00. Unfortunately, as we are not “transferring” your shares but rather issuing shares of a new corporation, we are unable to keep the registered status of your investment with the CBI Lakehouse project. While there may be methods to keep the registered status of your investment, this is outside the scope of our involvement in the class action. We recommend discussing this matter with a tax professional to consider your options.

  • CBI Lakehouse Settlement FAQ

    We have received multiple e-mails and phone calls from investors with respect to the settlement. Please note that due to the volume of calls and e-mails we receive, we cannot answer individual questions about the settlement. We have reviewed the questions that investors have sent us, and we have found some common themes. We have provided our response to these questions below:

    1. What is the settlement exactly?

    The settlement is the recovery of the Lakehouse property at Sylvan Lake, free and clear of all encumbrances except for an architectural charge in the amount of $85,000.00.

    Investors who do not Opt-Out will have their investment converted into voting shares of a new company which will be the owner of the Property. The Investors themselves will “own” the company as they are the voting shareholders.

    This is different from what investors currently have. The investors do not have any direct ownership interest in the Lakehouse property at this moment. The property, and the mortgage on title, is held by CBI Group companies, not the investors. The difference now post-settlement is that the CBI Group will be removed completely from the ownership and management of the Lakehouse property, and will have control over how to proceed.

    Share ownership in the new company will be “pro-rata”, so that your shares will reflect your investment. For example, an investor who invested $100,000 will have ten times as many shares as an investor who invested $10,000.00. Their voting rights and voting power will reflect their share ownership.

    Additionally, and importantly, the defendants are excluded parties, so none of their shares or shares of their relatives, will be participating in what happens next with this property.

    2. Why should I agree to this?

    Investors have the right to Opt-Out if they so choose. However, if you do so you are not entitled to share in the settlement proceeds.

    The effect of Opting-Out will be that investors can carry on their own legal action if they so choose. However, the likelihood of recovery through ongoing litigation is minimal, as the investors who did not Opt-Out will be in control of the only real asset: the Lakehouse property.

    3. Why am I only hearing about this now post-settlement? Why was I not notified previously?

    Prior to the settlement approval, we did not have the investor lists. We were only aware of the investors who reached out to contact us and help fund the initial litigation. The Defendants were in control of the lists and were responsible for contacting investors about the Notice of Settlement Approval Hearing.

    We are now in possession of the investor lists and are contacting investors via e-mail. If you have not been contacted, the forms can be downloaded at the Forms Downloads page.

    4. Why am I not getting any notifications when other investors are?

    The investor lists contain the addresses and e-mails of investors at the time of their investment. If your address and e-mail address has been changed then we are unable to contact you. Please contact us via e-mail and we will re-send the form to you. Alternatively, you can download the forms at the Forms Downloads page.

    We are updating investor information when you provide the same to us so we can contact you for future updates.

    5. Are you going to re-develop the property or sell it?

    That decision will be made by the investors, not the law firm. We will be holding an investors’ meeting in late 2015 / early 2016 where investors will be able to decide and vote on whether they wish to sell or develop the property. We have arranged for commercial realtors and developers to make presentations to the investors so that they can make an informed decision. The investors will make an informed choice on what to do next. If it is to sell, the property will be listed and sold and proceeds split out on a pro rata basis. If it is to develop, there will be a management team that will include investor representation, and that will proceed with a developer. We are not making that decision for you.

    6. What will be the payout / return on investment to investors?

    This is completely dependent on whether investors choose to develop or sell the property. We cannot speculate on what investors’ return might look like. At the time of the meeting, we urge you to attend so you can ask your own questions of the commercial realtors and the developer.

    7. I invested through Olympia Trust as an RSP investment. Are you aware of my investment?

    Regardless of whether investors invested through Olympia Trust or directly with the CBI Group, we have your contact information. For the purposes of settlement, this makes no difference.

    8. I received T5 slips / other tax slips for this investment, but have not received any actual investment income. How do I address this with the CRA?

    Unfortunately we cannot answer any questions related to the tax aspects of this matter, as we are solely dealing with the litigation and settlement. We recommend seeking the advice of a tax professional for any tax issues arising.

  • LAKEHOUSE SETTLEMENT CERTIFIED

    Kevin McGuigan is pleased to announce that on September 9, 2015, Justice Macleod approved and certified the settlement of this action. It has been settled on the terms previously presented to investors. Investors had opportunity to review it following its publication and direction to investors to review it after the June 2nd, 2015 case management conference.

    We received overwhelming support for this resolution and the only objection to resolution focused on the frustration that the Cadmans were not being punished here. As we have clarified previously, civil litigation is not about punishment. We are focused on maximizing a return for investors. With regard to the Lakehouse project, investors can expect that we will be in contact with them in the next several weeks.

    Investors will now be provided with a “Notice of Settlement Approval”, which will be sent out to investors. If you do not wish to be part of the settlement, you have an option to Opt-Out, which must be sent to us by no later than October 23rd, 2015. If you Opt-Out of the settlement, you will not be entitled to share in the settlement proceeds, and will have to bring your own distinct court action for recovery in the Lakehouse Project.

    If you do not Opt-Out, you are automatically part of the settlement. However, we are asking investors to provide us with details of the amount and proof of their investment in the Claim Form included in the Notice of Settlement Approval, which we will need in order to set up the settlement. We are asking for this information by no later than October 23rd, 2015, so that we can move quickly on the settlement. Please do not phone us to give us this information. Please either print out the form and fill it in and either scan it back to us, or mail it to us. Or send us an email with the information in it. We need you to complete the information for us to track you and if you phone us, mistakes can be made.

    What will happen next is that we will take over the Lakehouse Property, with the property being transferred to a new corporation created by us. The Defendants will pay off the outstanding property taxes and the encumbrances will be taken off of title to the Lakehouse Property, with the exception of an architectural charge, which we have separately dealt with. To be clear, we will end up with the property without encumbrances that would scare off either development or sale of the property. Investors may recall that the property was previously listed for sale for $1 million with no offers. However, that was at a time that the property had a mortgage for over $8 million on it. We have cleaned this asset up for investors so that they can proceed with deciding what to do next.

    Investors’ contribution to the Lakehouse Project initially will be reflected in pro-rata share ownership in the new company, which is why we are asking for investors who do not Opt-Out to provide us with the Investor Participation Form, so we know exactly what your initial contribution was. None of the Defendants or their family members will be involved in this resolution. When we take over this project, we will be reviewing the share certificates and minute book to verify everyone’s shareholder participation.

    When the company is set up and share ownership established, we will be holding a meeting of shareholders. At this meeting, the investors will be presented with two proposals regarding the future of the Lakehouse Property. One proposal will involve putting the Lakehouse Property for sale immediately, and the other will discuss bringing in a competent developer who will advise as to the steps to re-finance and re-develop the project. Investors will vote on which option they want to pursue. These two proposals will come from two distinct and separate groups. And investors will make an informed decision on what happens next. It will be the responsibility of investors to inform themselves and to vote.

    We thank investors for their cooperation and patience in this matter. McGuigan Nelson LLP is working diligently to ensure that investors obtain some return on their investment in this property.

    NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT PHONE US ANY INFORMATION WITH RESPECT TO YOUR INVESTMENTS. PLEASE SEND THE INFORMATION VIA ORDINARY MAIL OR PREFERABLY, VIA E-MAIL. WE CANNOT ANSWER INDIVIDUAL PHONE CALLS. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT APPROVAL FORM, OPT OUT FORM, AND CLAIM FORM, OR SEE THE “FORM DOWNLOADS” PAGE UNDER CBI GROUP.

  • As we are getting closer to the Settlement Approval Hearing for the CBI Lakehouse Class Action on September 9th, we have heard from a number of investors who received the Notice of Settlement Approval Hearing. Please note that we cannot respond to each individual investor as it takes a significant amount of time. We have been updating our website frequently as more information becomes available.

    We would like to provide the following clarification to investors, as there seems to be some confusion about what is happening:

    1. As stated in our earlier updates, this is a Notice of Settlement Approval Hearing There is nothing for investors to do at this time other than to be aware that the hearing is coming up and we propose to have our settlement approved by the Court. If you wish to object to the proposed settlement, you can provide us your written comments to us by no later than August 9th, 2015 , and we will inform the Court of these objections on September 9th.

    2. If the settlement is approved, a second notice will go out to investors, called a Notice of Settlement Approval. If you wish to Opt – Out of the settlement ,this is your chance to do so. If you do Opt-Out, you will not be entitled to share in any of the proceeds of the sale or development of the Lakehouse property. This will mean that if you are not happy with this settlement, you intend to pursue separate legal action on your own. To date, nobody has expressed that intent.

    3. If we do not approve this settlement, the property will be lost in a tax sale. The taxes are owed and not paid. The property was marketed for sale at $1,000,000.00 and did not sell while it had the investors’ mortgage on title. The lawsuit, and this settlement, is the only way to attempt to mitigate investors’ loss and preserve any assets for investors.

    4. Lawyers will not decide what happens with the land. We will take over the property under the class action settlement, with taxes paid, and the architectural fee resolved, with the benefit of all plans and (expired) development permits. This will provide investors with complete control over everything they paid for here.

    5. If the settlement is approved, the investors who have not Opted-Out of the settlement will be presented with two options, by two distinct groups, on either completing development of the project, with new financing, or to sell the project along with all the work product. Investors will make a decision on what to do, based on those presentations.

    6. We wish to be clear that through court proceedings, the sworn evidence provided by the Defendants in this action was that there is no equity within the project and there are no plans to complete it. So for those investors that think there is an alternative, that is not the case.

    7. We have heard from several investors who have expressed dissatisfaction that this settlement will not “punish” the Cadmans. Civil litigation is not about punishment. The Alberta Securities Commission has some hearings with the Cadmans and you can look those up if you wish. However, sanctions relate to fines and that provides no benefit to investors. The focus of this lawsuit is to attempt to help investors recoup and mitigate their investment here. In other words, this is about trying to find value for investors. And again, if we do not settle, the only asset here will be lost in tax sale and there will be nothing left for investors. You will recoup nothing. And so this settlement is the only viable option at this point for investors to preserve any value.

    Given the fact that we are likely years away from getting to and through a trial, there is no money or appetite of investors to run a trial, the fact that the Cadmans have confirmed that the Lakehouse Project has no assets other than the Lakehouse Property, and the fact that the Lakehouse Property will soon be lost to a tax sale if we do not act quickly, there really is no choice here.

    Faced with these risks, we have structured a proposed settlement which allows investors who stay in the settlement to recoup some of their loss. If you are not happy with this, you are entitled to Opt-Out, and you can try to sue on your own, if you cannot accept any of the above.

    We understand that this information is hard to process and accept. Please do not “shoot the messenger”. Bluntly, Lakehouse has failed and the money is spent. The Cadmans obtained most of their compensation on the front end of this investment, as they disclosed clearly in the Offering Memorandum that they were using funds raised to acquire the land at $2.2 million, and were selling it to investors for $5.1 million. They made $2.9 million at the outset. That was disclosed to you. Other monies raised went to development costs and architectural plans and part of our settlement is to take possession of those plans, so investors can review the two options and decide how to best use the information and plans provided.

    We hope this clarifies some of the concerns investors have about the settlement. We look forward to updating investors after September 9th, 2015. We trust everyone will opt in, and we look forward to meeting all of you when you decide what to do with the lands.

    -Kevin McGuigan

  • Kevin McGuigan is pleased to announce that on June 2, 2015, Justice Macleod granted the Settlement Approval Hearing Order. This will mean the following: In the next several weeks, investors in Lakehouse will receive a “Notice of Settlement Approval Hearing” from Defendants’ counsel. This means that a date has been set for the court to approve the settlement between Class Members and the Defendants.

    If you do not receive anything about Lakehouse and you are an investor, please email Kevin at Kevin@mcglaw.ca directly. Please only email if you do not receive the forms. If you receive the forms, you do not have to do anything at this time. If you do not approve of the settlement as proposed then review the Notice, which will set out your options.

    We have a return date of September 9, 2015, before Justice Macleod. At that application, we will seek to approve the settlement. If the settlement is approved, then a second notice will be sent to all investors, informing everyone of the settlement. At that time investors will either make a claim to be a part of the settlement, or have the option of opting out of the settlement and proceeding with their own individual claim against the Defendants. This is the only viable means for us to help investors recoup something here.

    Shortly after the expected approval of the settlement on September 9th, 2015, the Defendants will pay out the taxes owing on the property and it will be transferred to a new corporation. We will then hold the property, along with all the architectural and development plans, with a nominal financial encumbrance of $85,000.00 that will be paid out on sale or refinance of the property. All class members will be shareholders in this new corporation on a pro-rata basis. At that time, we will then have a presentation and class members will vote. We will vote to either sell the property at a price recommended by commercial realtors, or to work with a different developer. Two groups will present those options to class members. Class members will decide what to do. This is all in accordance with the original proposal sent to investors, for which we received universal approval from investors. We will keep you posted on progress as we proceed. We ask your patience and that you do not email us for individual inquiries, as we cannot respond to those. All information will be posted to our website.

    To review the proposed settlement agreement, please visit the Forms Downloads page.

    -Kevin McGuigan