Everything is digital!

Tokenization-schmokenisation! Digitse – widgetize!…. What are we really on about?

There was a very interesting piece on Coinbase by the ever incomparable, always cerebral, forever insightful Frances Coppola last year. It addressed the real world issues around digital coins, tokenising assets and the actual custody of the underlying assets. For those who are interested, the link can be found here:

Frances Coppola: Tokenizing Assets as Crypto Is a Delusion

We agree with her on the general principle behind her column. The sad truth is that we, the founders of iHuddle, are no longer young and starry eyed and have been around the block for a while. Ergo, our hunger to make the world of asset management and disintermediated investment a “real” thing, is tempered by experience over the last two decades that shows that

• Fraud is rather too real and unfortunately very prevalent
• Most people are (rather sadly), going to screw over an unknown stakeholder who has limited recourse to them UNLESS there are repercussions.
• Somebody is going to have to custody the underlying assets that are subject to digitisation, tokenisation, word de jeur, and that somebody better be more trustworthy than Gandhi around a medium-rare rib-eye (grass-fed of course).

This is why people invest their savings in regulated asset or investment managers. Apart from track record (we’re all humans and would rather invest with somebody who has won more than he or she has lost), we’re all hoping that a national regulator has done the needful to weed out the fraudsters, tricksters, hucksters and liars.

Not that it always works – BaFin really dropped the ball on Wirecard. 

Wirecard scandal leaves German regulators under fire

Image courtesy of https://www.leaprate.com/financial-services/rules-and-regulation/bafin-takes-over-in-wirecard-balance-sheet-scandal/

You don’t even need to be a “bad guy” who wants to steal other peoples’ money. You could just be a really good guy, suffering from insane amounts of hubris because you benefited from the low rate bull cycle and thought you were untouchable. In common parlance this is referred to as “Who cares what the fund prospectus says eh? I know better!” akay the Woodford Syndrome.

Disgraced British fund manager Neil Woodford says sorry for huge losses as he announces comeback

Talk about chutzpah!

So… where do we come in?

If you’re a little guy, and you can’t meet the minimum ticket size to invest in Apollo Fund V (or even if you did and you just don’t want them skimming mad fees off the top), chances are you’re going to invest in a private club deal. You’ll have somebody in your circle who needs cash in some form or another, who you or your network knows, who is trustworthy, can’t run away. Provided that you are comfortable with the risk (and not some graduate at a banking desk), your personal syndicate is going to advance the funds. So far, so good. But!

• Who does the documents?
• Who manages the cash-flows?
• How do you create liquidity without paying through your nose? Spending 5k on legals fees for your 20% of a £100k buy-to-let in Widnes, Cheshire kind of defeats the purpose.

That’s where we come in:

• We’ll administer it for you.
• We’ll digitise the whole asset and you can buy, sell, or trade your interest to other members in your syndicate friction free
• It’s all under English law and it works legall (trust us, we paid a lot for the advice). 
• Ain’t nobody running away anywhere. We’re in London, we’ve spent years working in finance and enough people know us. Our founders are regulated and the back-office is part of a regulated firm. Come in, say hullo and have a chat.

Check us out at: 

iHuddle – Co-Investments and Club Deals