Touchwood’s bogus address cons CSE, investors
The Touchwood company crisis has spread outside the shores of Sri Lanka with investors in Thailand suing the company there while in Colombo an attempt to deceive investors has been bared in a Business Times (BT) investigation.
The ‘new’ address of the Touchwood Lanka office as intimated to the Colombo Stock Exchange on February 28 is a bogus one, a BT investigation revealed.
Touchwood’s Nawala “office” which does not exist. Pix by Athula Devapriya
The address given as No. 220, Nawala Road, Nawala belongs to the wife of Kapila Ariyananda who when contacted informed the newspaper that there is no Touchwood office at this location.
According to the BT investigation, Touchwood organisation’s Thai investors plan to file action in Sri Lankan courts in late April. Mr. Ariyananda said the CEO of Touchwood Lanka Kiwlegedara had approached him regarding the premises but “he was never a tenant or operating” from this location. “He came to see the house but he did not pay the rent and we didn’t sign an agreement,” Mr. Ariyananda said. The BT photographer visiting the site of the new address only found an old caretaker who informed him there was no office there.
Mr. Ariyananda said he had already informed the post office not to deliver letters addressed to the Touchwood Group to his address as it was becoming a “nuisance.” In fact, he would be writing to the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) through his lawyer to inform of this incorrect address given.
He also revealed that when Mr. Kiwlegedara was contacted on Thursday he was told by him that the latter had already informed the CSE that Touchwood was not at this location but that he was operating from a private address in Horton Place. No such notice has been posted on the CSE website.
Touchwood depositors have gone to the old office premises at Bambalapitiya which was empty and then based on the CSE announcement gone to the Nawala address which also drew a blank. Touchwood details on the CSE website as at Friday still gave the office address as – No. 220, Nawala Road, Nawala and the telephone no. as 4721448. When investors called the no. 0777-077324, which was listed in the February 28 CSE announcement, the response was rude and unpleasant. “One man who picked the phone… I
The caretaker
don’t know whether it was Kiwlegedera because they didn’t identify themselves … said I should not bother calling anymore,” one depositor said. The company was owned by Roscoe Maloney and his wife, Swarna who then sold out to a group of investors led by Mr. Kiwlegedera who promised to reignite the crisis-hit firms.
The Maloneys arebelieved to be in Cambodia but wanted for questioning in Colombo.
Thai investors in the Touchwood Forestry Company in Thailand say they were duped by Roscoe Maloney to invest in plantations. They have formed a group and were looking at the possibility of filing action in the Sri Lankan courts against the Touchwood organisation, lawyer and Co-ordinator of the Sri Lanka Touchwood Stakeholders Association, G.S. Lakshan Dias said in an interview with the Business Times.
He noted that most of the Thai investors represented by their organizer Tim Randall would be looking at filing action against the Maloneys in late April. Through the website created for the Thai investors Mr. Randall had highlighted that about 60 per cent comprises Thai nationals who had invested in the properties owned by the Touchwood Forestry Company and about 40 per cent were overseas investors. Currently, there is already a case being heard in the Thai courts against Roscoe Maloney, the website stated. In the meantime, on the winding up case CHC/31/2013/CO against Touchwood in the Commercial High Court, judgment is due on May 5. During the March hearing of the case the Central Bank had joined the case as an intervening party.
Mr. Dias also said that, according to their information. Touchwood’s Hong Kong office would also be closing down in addition to the Dubai office.
The company has offices in Sri Lanka, Australia, Thailand and Dubai according to its website.