Cheque is in the post in stamp scheme
>By Leslie Crawford
>Published: September 27 2005 03:00 | Last updated: September 27 2005 03:00
»
High property prices, low interest rates and a bumpy stock market have driven hundreds of thousands of Spanish investors to place their savings in stamps.

With 10-year government bonds yielding just 3.3 per cent, Spaniards have invested more than €5bn ($6bn) in unregulated stamp-investing schemes that offer annual returns of up to 8 per cent.

Financial chat rooms on the internet are abuzz with the high returns offered by Afinsa - the world's largest stamp dealer and. after Sotheby's and Christie's, the third-largest player in all collectables - and Forum Filatelico, although little is said about the stamps supposed to be underpinning the schemes.

Consumer groups are concerned that the two companies are attracting investors who know little, if anything, about stamps.

"We are talking about totally unregulated financial investments," says Enrique Garcia of OCU, a Spanish consumer defence organization. "If these companies were to go bust, investors would only have their stamps to fall back on. That is why it is paramount to know the true value of the stamps on the open market."

Afinsa has sold €1.2bn worth of stamps to 143,000 clients, who have the right to sell them back to Afinsa at the end of the investment period. The company reported €40m in capital and reserves in 2003.

Forum Filatelico, for its part, estimates it has €3.8bn in outstanding repurchase contracts with its 200,000 clients spread over the next 15 years, compared with capital and reserves of €288m at the end of 2004.

"If all our clients wanted their money back at the same time, we would go bankrupt. But so would a bank," Francisco Briones, chairman of Forum Filatelico, said in an interview. "We have capitalised the company to make it as solvent as possible."

Afinsa says it is not obliged to record the total value of savings schemes sold to investors as a liability, as a bank would, because investors can choose to keep their stamps, or sell them on the open market. The repurchase contract, Afinsa says, is a "residual question".

But OCU, the consumer defence group, says it was unable to find a buyer on the open market for a set of Afinsa stamps it acquired for €600.

"We were offered only 5 per cent of the original purchase price if we wanted to sell Afinsa's stamps on the open market," OCU says in a special report on investing in collectables, which concludes that these investments are too risky for a non-specialist.

Afinsa says its prices are based on the "most prestigious philatelic catalogues in the world". But philatelic experts in the UK say catalogue prices are a reference only, and that it is the norm for stamp dealers to offer deep discounts on catalogue valuations. "Quality is everything." says Andrew Claridge, a partner at Grosvenor Philatelic Auctions, one of the top auction houses in the UK. "The variation in price is extraordinary. A superb stamp might fetch more than its catalogue value at an auction, whereas one in bad condition may be worth only a fraction of its catalogue price."

Forum Filatelico, which only sells sets of Europa theme stamps - series printed by European post offices each year since 1956 to mark the birth of the Common Market - admits that it charges its clients up to 10 times catalogue value for its stamps. "It is normal to charge our clients 8-10 times catalogue prices because of the services we provide, including the custody and conservation of stamps, the drawing up of contracts and the repurchase guarantees," said Mr Briones.

"We publish lists of prices for our clients, in which the sale and purchase price are the same. Our prices have nothing to do with catalogues, they are only for our clients. You could say it is a closed market."

Stamp dealers say it is only by operating a closed market that Forum Filatelico can sustain such inflated prices for its stamps. "There are huge quantities of Europa theme stamps in the market." says Tristan Brittain, a stamp dealer in the UK. "Anyone can buy them, but I would not recommend them as an investment."

In the UK, the annual trade in rare stamps is estimated at £?0m ($53m). according to Stanley Gibbons, the leading stamp dealer in the UK.

So the sheer volume of alleged investment-grade stamps being sold by Afinsa and Forum Filatelico - totalling more than €l.lbn last year - is raising eyebrows in the stamp collecting world. As a result, insurers at Lloyd's of London have questioned Forum Filatelico and Afinsa on the value they are placing on their stamps, which underpin policies worth about €1.2bn for each company.

Hiscox, a specialist insurer at Lloyd's, cancelled its policies with the two Spanish companies this summer because it became unhappy with "the insurance-to-value mismatch", meaning that the sums insured were much higher than the real, open-market value of the stamps, according to Charles Dupplin at Hiscox.

Mr Dupplin, a member of the Royal Philatelic Society, travelled to Madrid in June to inspect the stamps in Forum Filatelico's vaults.

"They were just pretty bits of paper," Mr Dupplin told the FT. He added that he doubted the investment value of Forum Filatelico's Europa-theme stamps.

It is understood that other insurers at Lloyd's are reviewing their policies with the two Spanish companies.

In an interview, Mr Briones vigorously disputed Mr Dupplin's assertions. "One thing is to be a stamp collector, another thing is to be in the business of stamps. I cannot consent that he should disparage our business," he said.

Afinsa, in written answers to questions submitted by the FT, said: "The fact that one underwriter out of 150 has chosen to withdraw its policy does not worry us in the least."

Unlike Forum Filatelico, Afinsa sells a broader selection of stamps, as well as art and antiques. It has become a big name in the global stamp market after acquiring auction houses in Europe, Asia and the US, where it owns a 70 per cent stake in Nasdaq-listed Greg Manning Auctions (GMAI).

GMAI acts as the exclusive supplier of collectables, primarily stamps and coins, for Afinsa on a worldwide basis. In the financial year ending June 30 2005. according to GMAI's filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Afinsa accounted for 51 per cent of GMAI's total revenues and 72 per cent of its gross profits. GMAI's profit margins on sales to Afinsa are eight times higher than on sales to other clients.

GMAI and Afinsa say the value of their transactions "are substantially equivalent to what would be charged by a clearly independent party".

But a US hedge fund, which is shorting GMAI stock, retorts: "It is peculiar, to say the least, that Afinsa is willing to pay GMAI an enormous premium on its stamp purchases.

"The result, however, is obvious: Afinsa supports strong profits for GMAI and thus a higher share price for its biggest asset."

Consumer groups and insurers are pressing Spain's financial authorities to tighten supervision over Afinsa and Forum Filatelico to safeguard the savings of hundreds of thousands of small Spanish investors.
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Sem querer entrar em discussões futeis, convinha o Ming dizer a verdade, ou então calado, será a melhor coisa a fazer. Como é possivel que diga que foi à Afinsa e venha dizer tantos disparates no mesmo tópico?
Este foi o seu exemplo:

Uma das hipóteses começa por propor uma taxa de 5% durante 5 anos, que depois passa a 8% durante mais 5 anos, e que depois passa a 10% durante 10 anos!

TUDO ISTO QUE O MING DIZ É FALSO.

NÃO EXISTE NENHUM PRODUTO NA AFINSA COM ESTAS CARACTERISTICAS.

Outra, é dizer que o mercado não absorveria os selos em circulação. Não percebe mesmo nada de selos, senão não diria isso. No Mundo existem milhões de coleccionadores.

Preocupe-se a explicar o que é que a PJ anda a fazer nas instalações dos bancos, que tanto defende. É lógico que os vigaristas defendem-se uns aos outros.

Tb já jogas aos Ponzis, Ming? eheh