Millions lost, police reports filed: Behind the plight of CoAssets’ hapless investors

The holiday season was supposed to bring cheer in a pandemic-ravaged year.

Several hundred retail investors, however, were shaken to the core in early December after finding out that CoAssets, a Singapore-based investment platform that they’ve lent money to, had disposed of over US$30 million in borrowings to Sunfits, a virtually unknown debt recovery firm.

Sunfits wrote in a note to investors that it couldn’t recover the debt and there’s no “visibility” on redeeming any of the assets.

CoAssets’ struggles aren’t isolated. Major players in the alternative lending space have also been hit hard by layoffs, with investors on these platforms losing some of their money.

But CoAssets’ situation seems more dire: The firm has shut down. While some earlier investors got back their money, hundreds more will likely see their holdings evaporate entirely.

Some lenders had put their life savings into the firm, which pools capital to make investments. Others had invested money belonging to family and friends.

Lawrence Lim, an ex-Singapore army colonel who was CoAssets’ chief operating officer, says he knows “people who’ve sold their houses” to buy the company’s shares.

In an interview with Tech in Asia, Lim says that he quit CoAssets over a year ago after being sidelined for objecting to practices within the company. But he isn’t the only senior executive who was kept out of the loop after questioning decisions.

Since his exit, Lim has been vocal and outraged by the alleged mismanagement, telling anyone he could to steer clear of the firm. He places the blame on Getty Goh, the ex-group CEO of CoAssets. Investors, too, are aiming their wrath at Goh, who also served as the company’s chairman.

In a statement, Goh says that he’s “distressed” by the prospects of investors losing their money. However, he rejects Lim’s allegations, telling Tech in Asia that before leaving the company, he was putting together a deal in which DWG, a prominent real estate brokerage firm in Singapore, would absorb CoAssets and help investors recover their money.

The deal talks, however, was scuttled by DWG without his involvement, Goh says.

Military pedigree

Brighten goes dark

Enter the white knight

DWG pulls out