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• Scammed investor 2018-12-13 2:15:33 PM Fortress turned out to be a house of cards. As a result of their misrepresentations at the special events put on for public consumption, and by the outright lies of their agent, we were induced to invest in project(s) that we otherwise would not have contemplated; notwithstanding that FSCO, the regulating body, was also reckless for not safeguarding investors.

• El Bastardo 2018-12-13 1:24:41 PM This is funny. Clarence markets himself as the "Cash Flow Tutor" but yet made recommendations to invest in products with very lumpy cash flows (if any)....on top of it being illiquid and very high risk. Great cash flow stream there! It's sad that the barriers to entry to sell this stuff were so sooooo low....because these hacks piled a lot of investors into an unsuitable product for the most part. Had it been with another regulatory body, there would have been a more stringent suitability tests. These were simply unsuitable for many investors...how many investors were given the recommendation to pile a good chunk(if not all) of their net liquid assets into this crap? From clowns that understand/understood nothing about securities nor constructing portfolios? This is why you have situations like the Reuters story of the 70 year old man...no liquidity, no income, and no time horizon....he's left with nada. Is this the kind of stuff that makes you a formidable fiduciary? I don't think so. The dumb brokers/agents that sold this shit always made meaningless comparisons to equity indices and always pitched that it lacked volatility...well duh...no secondary market -> no pricing-> no vol...and many times comparisons were made to the SPTSX...where they lacked the most basic understanding of the underlying sectors. Stupid idiots. Interviewed a couple of these brokers and they were complete door knobs. What kind of the investment advice did you get from a crowd that has the only challenge of 'checking off the boxes'? Where they don't consider anything in the context of an entire portfolio? Where in some instances the senior lenders required a higher return than the junior ranking loans? Does that make sense to anyone? More risk for less compensation? Imagine if this crap traded on a secondary market. Investors got endless and fruitless stories about the difficulties of development...from operators that hadn't had single day of experience in building stuff. Extraordinarily poor execution, high fees, and embellished returns/performance is what you got...with those dumb banner ads of exits.

• David Franklin 2018-12-13 1:03:27 PM Clarence, I received a letter, dated July 10, 2017, from Jeremy Devereux of Norton Rose Fulbright as counsel to Fortress Real Developments Inc. In case you didnot know, Jawad Rathore is the 80% shareholder and Vince Petrozza the 20% shareholder and they are officers and directors of this company. Included in this letter are the following statements: “In public statements you have repeatedly asserted that Fortress receives a fee of 35% of the funds raised for development projects in which Fortress is involved, and that such a fee is set out in Development Consultant Agreements.” “When Fortress is retained as a consultant by a developer, Fortress is typically entitled to a fee for its consulting services and its costs in the range of about 2-4% of total project costs. In addition, the amounts payable by the developer for broker and agent commissions, mortgage administration fees and referral fees — none of which are payable to Fortress — are typically in the range of 18% or more of the funds raised.” By doing the math, Fortress is receiving 35% less the 18% which leaves 17%. If the 18% paid out is higher, then Fortress receives a lower amount than 17%. Fortress stated publicly that it raised $920 million so the 35% fee is $322 million and 17% is $156.4 million. Why can’t Fortress cover the trustee and legal fees that investors are paying from the money it made? Why is it increasing the losses of the investors? How do you feel knowing this that you had your family members invest in these mortgages and you profited off them? How do you think the agents who invested themselves and had family members invest feel now? How do their family members feel? Were you and the other agents aware that in addition to the 35% that two years interest at 8%, 16% was also deducted, so that the developer only received 49% of investor funds? Also, were you and the other agents aware that the interest payments received by investors came from their own capital? Investors I spoke with thought that the interest payments were being paid from the developers own funds and not from their own money. Why did these investors think this? Why didn’t the agents tell them this? The development agreements set out that $5,000 of investor funds was to be paid to a charity, So, when Fortress claimed it was a philanthropist, it was the investors who were really the philanthropists. Clarence, how many agents knew about the 35% fee?

• 2018-12-13 12:15:38 PM Wow! Are you ever delusional! Save your breath crook. Many of us here have a ton of experience dealing with the fortress crooks and brokers such as yourself. Nothing you can say here is going to excuse you or anyone else involved in peddling this scam. He excuses you provide for things not working out with Fortess are laughable. As are you.

• Investor Voice 2018-12-13 11:17:33 AM I was not a employee of FDS. Just how I can access products of Manulife and Sunlife among others, without being an employee of theirs, I could access the products provided by FDS. My mortgage license was held there and besides syndicated mortgages, I also arranged residential mortgages. I don't know why I have to justify myself when all I am trying to do is inform people with supporting documents from credible sources that I didn't create.