Proudly Canadian; er, Lebanese-Canadian
If life is good, what more could anyone ask for? And life appears to be good for Lebanese Canadian Roland Eid and his family. Living in Beirut, with the millions Mr. Eid unlawfully transferred from a going concern, ICI Construction Management, to his personal bank account in Lebanon. Well, he founded the company, after all. It's hard to imagine that a company one has founded, and successfully operated, isn't one's own personal bank account.
Good management means good profits. And that's what Canada, like any other country eager to expand its GDP, is looking for. It's why clever and skillful entrepreneurs like Roland Eid are so welcome to come to Canada as immigrants. To become part of the workforce, or to establish a company and employ workers, and the whole enterprise profiting both the country and its founder. There are great opportunities for those who work hard and aspire to success.
Mr. Eid's experience in Canada appears to have been a good one. And Canada appears to have done well by him, just as he did well for Canada. An excellent partnership. However, it transpires, a little on the sinister side of shady...? That successful construction firm that Mr. Eid launched and did well by and with, suddenly collapsed.
Not much mystery why it did; in the words of an Ontario Superior court judge, Mr. Eid's decision to drain the company's cash reserves "effective emptied ICI's corporate treasury, leaving it with little or no operating capital". At the time the company had few assets other than the $1.7-million Mr. Eid took personal possession of - and it had $10.6 million in liabilities.
Might it be too presumptuous to conclude that Mr. Eid chose to skip out on his 'liabilities', and to take advantage of his available cash flow? A mere week after Mr. Eid departed Ottawa with his family to re-establish residence in his native Lebanon, the company he founded, unable to meet its weekly payroll of $50,000, collapsed. A month later ICI was petitioned into bankruptcy.
Mr. Eid easily explains it all away. The money he transferred from ICI to his personal Lebanese bank account represented his profit on the sale of his construction company to an ICI executive. Peculiarly, the bankruptcy trustee of Surgeson Carson Associates found no evidence of any such company-sale transaction.
Mr. Eid did have some cause for complaint; it seems enquiries made by the RCMP to Lebanese officials did have a certain nuisance value in Beirut, causing him some irritating problems. Something appears to have been resolved; he has been able to travel, he claims, without incident. And he simply cannot imagine what might have happened to make ICI go into bankruptcy.
"It's too bad what happened with ICI. I built something that could have gone on for a long time. I have no idea what happened after I left. The whole world turned to hell." The world of those who laboured for ICI, certainly did, and it must have been rather hellish for all those creditors, as well. But hey, that's life.
After all, Mr. Eid explains, he left the company with $1.5-million in receivable accounts. That should have kept the company afloat. Meanwhile, Mr. Eid, the founder of ICI Construction Management, now living in Beirut, is a happy man because "life is good". He's waiting out the flat Canadian economy.
Figuring it may take four or five years. And then, we get him back. "If they want to take me to court, I am ready for it. They don't want me to open my mouth, but I will if they're going to go after me." He's got something on the authorities. Claiming CSIS depended on him for blueprints for a number of embassies which he obtained from subcontractors.
His payoff for his willingness to work with CSIS was assistance with winning a number of federal construction contracts. Right.
Investigation, anyone?
Good management means good profits. And that's what Canada, like any other country eager to expand its GDP, is looking for. It's why clever and skillful entrepreneurs like Roland Eid are so welcome to come to Canada as immigrants. To become part of the workforce, or to establish a company and employ workers, and the whole enterprise profiting both the country and its founder. There are great opportunities for those who work hard and aspire to success.
Mr. Eid's experience in Canada appears to have been a good one. And Canada appears to have done well by him, just as he did well for Canada. An excellent partnership. However, it transpires, a little on the sinister side of shady...? That successful construction firm that Mr. Eid launched and did well by and with, suddenly collapsed.
Not much mystery why it did; in the words of an Ontario Superior court judge, Mr. Eid's decision to drain the company's cash reserves "effective emptied ICI's corporate treasury, leaving it with little or no operating capital". At the time the company had few assets other than the $1.7-million Mr. Eid took personal possession of - and it had $10.6 million in liabilities.
Might it be too presumptuous to conclude that Mr. Eid chose to skip out on his 'liabilities', and to take advantage of his available cash flow? A mere week after Mr. Eid departed Ottawa with his family to re-establish residence in his native Lebanon, the company he founded, unable to meet its weekly payroll of $50,000, collapsed. A month later ICI was petitioned into bankruptcy.
Mr. Eid easily explains it all away. The money he transferred from ICI to his personal Lebanese bank account represented his profit on the sale of his construction company to an ICI executive. Peculiarly, the bankruptcy trustee of Surgeson Carson Associates found no evidence of any such company-sale transaction.
Mr. Eid did have some cause for complaint; it seems enquiries made by the RCMP to Lebanese officials did have a certain nuisance value in Beirut, causing him some irritating problems. Something appears to have been resolved; he has been able to travel, he claims, without incident. And he simply cannot imagine what might have happened to make ICI go into bankruptcy.
"It's too bad what happened with ICI. I built something that could have gone on for a long time. I have no idea what happened after I left. The whole world turned to hell." The world of those who laboured for ICI, certainly did, and it must have been rather hellish for all those creditors, as well. But hey, that's life.
After all, Mr. Eid explains, he left the company with $1.5-million in receivable accounts. That should have kept the company afloat. Meanwhile, Mr. Eid, the founder of ICI Construction Management, now living in Beirut, is a happy man because "life is good". He's waiting out the flat Canadian economy.
Figuring it may take four or five years. And then, we get him back. "If they want to take me to court, I am ready for it. They don't want me to open my mouth, but I will if they're going to go after me." He's got something on the authorities. Claiming CSIS depended on him for blueprints for a number of embassies which he obtained from subcontractors.
His payoff for his willingness to work with CSIS was assistance with winning a number of federal construction contracts. Right.
Investigation, anyone?
Labels: Canada, Economy, Immigration, Middle East, Whoops
posted by Pieface @ 7:51 PM
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