" Lisa Ho sues former friend for $850,000 http://www.afr.com/p/national/lisa_ho_sues_former_friend_for_rT3gF9kw3KWFlimmWJTerI Lisa Ho is suing Hamish McLaren after he allegedly failed to return the $850,000 she invested Embattled fashion guru Lisa Ho has hit another financial snag, suing her former friend and one-time lender Hamish McLaren for $850,000 after she was promised a return that turned out to be too good to be true. Documents filed in the Federal Court show that Ms Ho, through her superannuation fund, is suing Mr McLaren â also known as Hamish Watson â after he allegedly failed to return the $850,000 she invested_. Mr McLaren has not yet filed a defence. More than 10 years ago he was banned from being a financial adviser for three years by the _Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The money from Ms Hoâs super fund was dished out in three instalments â $250,000 on September 19, 2011, $300,000 on October 11, 2011, and $300,000 on November 4, 2011 â after the two entered into an agreement whereby Mr McLaren allegedly promised an 18 per cent return on the funds. But one-and-a-half years later, no returns at all had been realised on the funds. On November 8, 2012, Ms Ho met with Mr McLaren and demanded her money back. Again in April 2013, her lawyers made the same demand. In June and August last year a total of just under $200,000 was returned to the struggling fashion designer, but the remaining $650,000 is still unaccounted for. Just days before Christmas, Lisa Ho Holdings sued Mr McLaren _alleging misleading and deceptive conduct and accusing him of falsely suggesting he had skill and expertise in financial investment and would make a significant return on the money. The news of the fallout comes less than a year after Ms Ho was forced to call in administrators HLB Mann Judd to her struggling fashion business, which had _accumulated $19.6 million in debt, including third-party debt of $11.4 million and intercompany loans of $8.2 million. Ms Ho ran into difficulties not long after her former husband Philip Smouhaâs fabric business went under. In 2012, she discovered an employee had been stealing from the business for more than eight years. During the designerâs financial troubles Mr McLaren lent her money, providing a short-term loan to Ms Hoâs companies to help cash flow. "
And this is shocking? I hate to say it, but most money managers, hedge funds, ect... Always end up failing, and blowing up, especially when friends and family's money is involved. Look at the track records of some of the biggest and baddest money managers, they make tons of money for a decade or so, and then blow up from too much leverage, and stay rich from all the fees they collected. (And those are the good ones, not the bad ones that fail after a couple of months)* If this woman had an iota of common sense, she would have researched this information before investing $800,000. And also researched her friend's background and see how he has done in past performance. It's actually very comical to me, at how easy it is to sucker other people from their money, because they're gullible and greedy. I don't feel sorry for her at all, you swim with sharks you're going to get devoured by people who have been in this business longer than her clothing line.