Since chicosan wanted to discuss TEP's, thought this information would be of help to all of you. Pay attention to the parts bolded and underlined, as they are important in this discussion:
Traded endowment policies (TEPs) or second hand endowment policies (SHEPs)are traditional with-profits endowments that have been sold to a new owner part way through their term. The TEP market enables buyers (investors) to buy unwanted endowment policies for more than the surrender value offered by the insurance company. Investors will pay more than the surrender value because the policy has greater value if it is kept in force than if it is terminated early.
When a policy is sold, all beneficial rights on the policy are transferred to the new owner. The new owner takes on responsibility for future premium payments and collects the maturity value when the policy matures or the death benefit when the original life assured dies. Policyholders who sell their policies, no longer benefit from the life cover and should consider whether to take out alternative cover.
The TEP market deals exclusively with Traditional With Profits policies. The easiest way of determining whether an endowment policy is in this category is to check to see whether an it mentions units, indicating it is a Unitised With Profits or Unit Linked policy, if bonuses are in sterling and there is no mention of units then it is probably a traditional With Profits. The other types of policies - “Unit Linked” and “Unitised With Profits” have a performance factor which is dependent directly on current investment market conditions. These are not tradable as the guarantees on the policy are much lower and there is no gap between the surrender value and the market value.
Notice these are "Unwanted" policies, and the "new owner takes on responsibility for future premium payments" otherwise the policy would lapse. So these policies must be kept in force, premium payments must continue to be made, or there is no payout when the person on whose life this was issued dies or the policy matures.
Now the mantra has been that only the super rich have access to these "special private placement policies," and they are not available to the "common man." Thus the conspiracy theory goes this is the way the rich keep the little guy down.
Now all of a sudden, the "super rich," out of the goodness of their hearts, are allowing a "select few" of you "little guys" the opportunity to make a lot of money by participating in these "special policies" through a "private placement." But doesn't that contradict the "super rich" wanting to keep the "little guy" down? If this is their true calling, then why would they even consider offering anyone, let alone a "select few" get a piece of this action? But not only are they allowing you to participate, you only have to pay an admin fee. You don't have to pay part of the premiums to keep these policies in force, and for all of this they are going to pay you thousands and thousands of dollars. The "super rich" are taking all the risks, paying out all the premiums, giving you a large % of the policy, and they are getting a smaller return on their investment. Doesn't sound like the "super rich" want to keep the "little guy" down now does it?
Notice that the reason why the person who took out the policy in the first place wants to sell it is because the surrender value is usually on the low side, they need cash now not at the end of the term of the endowment policy. The only way you gain is to keep the policy in force until death or maturity of the policy takes place. Even then your return is far less than other types of investment products.
This leads us to the size of this market. By size I mean how many of these policies are available to be sold. Well, this market is very small, and thus why the returns are small to the investor. They really aren't attractive investments to the "super rich" because most investors are not willing to hold these policies until the maturity or the death of the insured because: they have to continue to pay the premiums or the policy will lapse, only the maturity date of the policy is assured (the person might not die before the maturity date), and their rate of retun on their investment is low.
So let's cut to the chase. What we have here is a program that is being run by supposedly by 2 financial guru's, and I mean supposedly because we really don't know there are 2 of them; they have a Trust partner, who according to them is a "sophisticated" investor (a Venture Capital firm); program is only available in a private placement; and offering a product that has a very limited number of policies in play. Only problems are: The degrees don't exist, a Venture Capital firm does not deal in TEP's (not their function); and a private placement program will not return any more than one offered to the general public in this market.
Now before you respond this is only according to me, chicosan, please provide facts to challenge anything I have said above. In short, prove me wrong. By the way, were you aware that a NDA is not enforceable, or for that matter not needed, if you are not in a program? So a NDA excuse won't cut it, unless of course you really are in this progam, but since you said you weren't now you don't have to worry about being bound by any.