First Financial Wu Mianqiang
Liu Gang never imagined that the overseas real estate he bought through a well-known intermediary agency might end up in a situation where the property and wealth are empty.
More than a year ago, under the introduction of an intermediary agency, Liu Gang purchased 3 sets of real estate in Japan, but so far the property rights cannot be transferred, and the investment income promised at the beginning has not been fully realized.
According to a survey by a reporter from China Business News 1℃, hundreds of investors like Liu Gang bought the houses of this Japanese real estate company, and the amount of houses involved is hundreds of millions.
In recent years, many domestic investors have turned their attention to overseas, and a variety of investment projects, including overseas real estate purchases, have emerged.
At present, Liu Gang and other investors are preparing to report the case to the public security economic investigation department, hoping that the police can intervene in the investigation.
It is difficult to realize the agreed income
In January 2021, Jones Lang LaSalle sales staff promoted the "TOYOTOMINN Namba (Nihonbashi)" project developed by Toyotomi Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Toyotomi Company") to Liu Gang, with a total of 3 houses (room number). 202, 051, 702 respectively), with a total price of more than 5 million yuan.
Jones Lang LaSalle's official website describes it as "the world's leading real estate professional services firm" and its main business is "assisting clients in the investment, purchase, construction and lease of real estate across all asset classes".
The Toyotomi Project has a number of marketing agencies in mainland China, and Jones Lang LaSalle is one of them.
Based on the information provided by Liu Gang and other home buyers, the project they purchased is a residence. Toyotomi promises to lease these properties for homestay operation after the house is handed over, and the owner can obtain stable rental income; ; After the house is handed over, the buyer can get the corresponding rent.
That is to say, although it is a real estate transaction in name, in fact, the product design is similar to the combination of "real estate + wealth management".
The sales contract signed by Liu Gang and Fengchen Company shows that after the seller ( Fengchen Company ) receives the final payment from the buyer (Liu Gang), it will start to calculate the investment income of the paid amount, with an annualized income of 6%, until the project is completed when the property rights are registered ( Until June 2022), the income will be paid to Liu Gang on a quarterly or semi-annual basis.
According to the contract, this transaction is a transaction involving lease rights. Fengchen Company will be the sole tenant within 10 years from the registration date of the property transfer. The house is sublet to a third party.
The contract also stipulates that, from the third year to the end of the fourth year from the property transfer registration, the buyer has the right to request the seller to repurchase the property with the contractual transaction amount, and the seller must accept the repurchase request.
In terms of payment for house purchases, Toyotomi also accepts domestic payments in cash in RMB, which solves the concerns of house buyers that they cannot purchase foreign exchange to pay for overseas houses.
The sales staff of Jones Lang LaSalle told Liu Gang that the company had carried out detailed due diligence and compliance review on Toyotomi's projects, and Toyotomi had the strength (with a registered capital of 1 billion yen and 101 self-owned houses in Osaka) , there are 3 resorts in Japan), and there will be lawyers similar to Japan to witness the contract to ensure the rights and interests, "Jones Lang (Joint Bank) is an important customer of Toyotomi, so it has obtained the agency rights for a small number of houses."
As a result, Liu Gang's concerns were completely dispelled, he signed a house purchase contract, and paid several million yuan for the house.
Liu Gang is far more than just one person who has purchased Toyotomi's real estate in China.
In a material sent to Chinese investors who had already invested, Toyotomi claimed to have sent information to 503 investors. Many investors and their agents believed that 503 was the number of investors involved.
The reporter of Yicai 1℃ contacted a number of home buyers from Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and other places, who through Jones Lang LaSalle, Guangzhou Jinghong Consulting Co., Ltd. Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and other intermediaries recommended to obtain the project information and conclude the transaction.
Among the home buyers contacted by the reporter, Ms. Lin purchased 5 sets of Toyotomi's Tennoji project in Abeno District, Osaka, Japan at one time under the recommendation of the sales staff of Jinghong Consulting, a subsidiary of Hong Kong Jinghong Global Group in 2019. She also introduced My relatives also bought 2 sets.
In the beginning, everyone received income or rent as normal, but then the situation changed greatly.
For example, after Liu Gang purchased the above-mentioned properties, he continuously received income payments for the first and second quarters of 2021, but then he encountered a situation in which both housing income payments and rent were delayed.
Other home buyers encountered the same situation, and some even noticed this kind of abnormality earlier than Gang Liu.
In October 2021, Toyotomi company said in an email to Liu Gang that the epidemic has caused the company to be under pressure, and the existing rent cash is relatively short, so the rent payment in the third quarter is delayed, "I also hope that all owners and friends can make more money. Give us some time, and Toyotomi staff will work together to actively solve the current difficulties."
The representative of Toyotomi's Shanghai sales department also stated in the email that the company is doing financial audits, which "will be completed on November 30, 2021. At that time, our company's financial statements and future plans will be released together, please wait patiently."
Subsequently, Toyotomi issued a "Letter to Owners" stating that the earnings for the third quarter of 2021 will be paid on December 31, 2021, and the earnings for the fourth quarter of 2021 will be paid at the end of March 2022.
However, many investors have said that they have not received relevant payments for the third quarter of 2021 and beyond.
Some investors then organized rights protection groups and launched legal rights protection actions.
Mortgage property and personal collection account
What makes Liu Gang and other home buyers even more uneasy is that the real estate they have purchased may face great difficulties in delivering on time.
The reporter of Yicai 1℃ checked the information of nearly 10 investors' house Fujimoto (similar to the Chinese real estate registration certificate) and found that the houses they purchased were currently facing a very bad situation. of which are pledged to financial institutions for loans, and others are simply transferred to the name of a third-party company.
The experience of home buyer Wang Fang is representative.
Through the introduction of Jinghong Consulting, Wang Fang purchased the house in the third phase of Tennoji Park South developed by Toyotomi in Japan in October 2019, spending more than 1 million yuan.
The contract stipulates that Toyotomi will carry out the transfer procedures in February 2022, but three or four months have passed and the house has still not been transferred.
The Fujimoto she obtained showed that at the time she bought the house, the entire building was not owned by Toyotomi.
Fujimoto also recorded: On December 20, 2021, due to lawsuits involving other creditors, the ownership of the house was temporarily frozen by the Tokyo District Court; Litigation by a creditor in Hong Kong, China.
In addition to the lawsuit, the entire building of the house Wang Fang bought was mortgaged.
In March 2021, the debtor Toyotomi Company mortgaged the property to the Kinki Industrial Credit Portfolio, with claims ranging from credit transactions, bill claims, check claims and electronic record claims, with a maximum mortgage amount of 972 million yen (approximately 50.7384 million yuan). RMB).
In February 2022, the house also added a "mortgage" - it added three money consumption loans on March 17, July 16 and July 19, 2021, totaling 1 billion yen, The annual interest is 6%, and the annual damage amount is 16%. The debtor is Toyotomi Corporation, and the mortgagee is a company located in Hong Kong, China.
Ms. Lu from Guangzhou is also an investor, and the ownership of the house she purchased also remains in the name of other companies and is used by Toyotomi for mortgage financing.
The house Fujimoto provided by the intermediary agency shows that the ownership of the house was just transferred to Toyotomi on September 9, 2019, and Ms. Lu’s house purchase transaction happened before that.
On the day of obtaining the ownership of the house, Toyotomi Corporation carried out the highest mortgage financing with the highest mortgage amount of 1.014 billion yen (about 52.9308 million yuan), and the mortgagee was Kinki Industrial Credit Portfolio.
On April 5, 2021, an agency in Osaka City acquired the ownership of the house through purchase.
It's far more than just the homebuyers mentioned above.
According to a lawyer hired by a house buyer, he told the reporter of CBN 1℃ that he read several investor contracts and found that Toyotomi clearly stated that it would cooperate with the buyer to register, but did not register after the expiration. This essentially constitutes a breach of contract.”
Toyotomi mentioned in an email, “The transfer of houses is our primary focus, and it is also the primary means to protect the safety of the owner’s assets, followed by the settlement of rent payments, and finally the settlement of disputes. Of course, we do not want to see it. This happened.”
"At the beginning, the contract stated in black and white that it promised to cooperate with the owner to transfer the property rights when it expired. Now these houses have been mortgaged and the property rights have been transferred. How can Toyotomi still fulfill the transfer commitment?" Liu Gang said.
The house may not be transferred as scheduled, which has made investors like Liu Gang very uneasy. What is even more worrying is that at the beginning, many house buyers transferred the purchase money to their personal accounts, and they had to worry about the flow of these funds and whether it would affect own rights.
The house purchase contract signed by the domestic owner and Toyotomi stated that the money for the purchase of the house could be paid directly to the personal industrial and commercial bank account of Saiyuanji Yuzhen (Japanese Chinese, Chinese name Ma Jiye), the legal representative of Toyotomi, in Shanghai.
The payment records obtained by the Yicai 1℃ reporter confirmed that the full purchase price of Liu Gang (more than 5 million yuan), Ms. Lin (more than 8 million yuan), Ms. Lu (more than 3 million yuan) and others were directly remitted to Xiyuan Si Youzhen Personal Bank account.
In addition, according to an email from Toyotomi Corporation “Toyotomi Group Management Crisis Regeneration Plan – Report of Questionnaire Survey Results and Explanatory Video”, “The total amount of funds entrusted to us by investors is 19 billion yen (about 1 billion yuan). RMB)”.
"This should include the purchase price paid by Chinese domestic investors and owners to Toyotomi in recent years." Xue Ming, a senior person familiar with the financial and accounting business of Japanese companies, told Yicai 1℃ reporter.
"The questionnaire survey document sent by Toyotomi to investors shows that there are 503 customers involved. If the average resident pays 5 million yuan to purchase a house, a total of 2.5 billion yuan has been remitted to Xiyuanji Youzhen. The above-mentioned personal bank account." Liu Gang and other investors said, was the money remitted to the public account of Toyotomi?
How to import?
Still a mystery.
An unbearable "regeneration" for investors
In April 2022, when Toyotomi Company defaulted on the owner’s income and rent, the company’s legal representative, Yuma Nishiyuanji, appeared in the form of a short video.
Xiyuan Temple Yuzhen said in the video that since its establishment in 2013, Toyotomi has grown into a comprehensive real estate operation and management company centered on real estate development and sales. There are three main businesses, but since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, Japan's tourism, hotel industry and catering industry have suffered an unprecedented blow, "The impact of the entire environment has caused a chain effect, which has led to the company's main business being in trouble one after another. , thus triggering a capital chain crisis at the operational level.”
Toyotomi disclosed the company's financial data in an official email sent to investors on May 20.
In the financial report, in July 2018 and July 2019, Toyotomi's opening cash balance was only 334 million yen and 301 million yen, respectively, while in July 2020 and July 2021, Toyotomi company The cash balance at the beginning of the period increased to 548 million yen and 1.049 billion yen.
The reporter of Yicai 1℃ found that before the adjustment in December 2021, the company's net assets were 1.893 billion yen; after the adjustment, the net assets became -21.865 billion yen, "that is, from surplus to capital. Insolvency. In terms of accounting treatment, this is not a major adjustment, but an improper behavior." Xue Ming said.
Xue Ming further said, "From the financial report provided by Toyotomi, since 2019, Toyotomi's capital chain has been very tight, and the bank has stopped lending to Toyotomi. The outbreak of the epidemic in Japan began in 2020. Yes, the epidemic has only made an already dangerous situation even more dangerous. Neither Toyotomi nor the intermediary disclosed these situations to investors, and even signed contracts with investors in July 2021, but notified them three months later. Delayed payment, the company has a crisis, and there have been large-scale contract defaults.”
In addition, according to a practicing lawyer familiar with Japanese commercial law, a reporter from Yicai 1℃ said that borrowing money from banking institutions in Japan generally has a lower interest rate, but Toyotomi frequently mortgages its properties to lower-level credit cooperative financial institutions. “(Some of these mortgages) have an annual interest rate as high as 6%, which is equivalent to usury. This shows that Toyotomi should be very short of money, and the big banks have scaled back their loans, otherwise it would not be burdened with such a high amount of money. borrowing with interest".
In response to the current "difficulties", Yuma Nishiyuanji emphasized that "Toyotomi has not yet had any plans to apply for bankruptcy and liquidation."
After investigation and analysis, it sends a questionnaire to investors by email, which contains a summary of the current situation and proposals for solutions.
Although Yuzhen Saiyuanji said that "there is no plan to apply for bankruptcy liquidation", in the 11-page "Business Crisis Regeneration Plan" sent to investors on April 10, 2022, "Creditors Questionnaire" The content of the "Inquiry Form" states that in the event of large-scale runs, lawsuits, and pledges, in order to effectively protect the basic rights and interests of creditors, "our company will have no choice but to apply to the court for civil rejuvenation through the law. Apply for debt forgiveness, and then carry out corporate reorganization. If the reorganization plan is not approved by more than half of the creditors or the court, it will automatically enter the bankruptcy liquidation process, and the expected return rate of liquidation will not exceed 8%."
"Toyotomi means that if we join forces to collect housing payments and initiate lawsuits from them, the company will enter bankruptcy and liquidation procedures, and our return on liquidation will not exceed 8%. I smell the naked threat. ." An investor told Yicai 1℃ reporter.
At the same time, in the above-mentioned "Questionnaire for Creditors", Toyotomi proposed an "independent regeneration" plan, calling all creditors to complete the delivery of the house and repay the investment principal. The company hopes to obtain enough time to resume normal business operations. All creditors apply for a minimum waiting period of 6 years and a maximum of 10 years.
During this period, Toyotomi will resolve all creditor issues in accordance with five proposals.
The reporter of Yicai 1℃ sent an interview request to Toyotomi company on the relevant situation, but the company said in the reply email that it "does not accept (make) any reply".
At the same time, the reporter tried to understand the views of the intermediary agency, but the relevant personnel of Jones Lang LaSalle said that it was "inconvenient to respond" after receiving the reporter's call. people answer.
*At the request of the interviewee, Liu Gang, Wang Fang and Xue Ming in the article are all pseudonyms