Smidge.Com Letter to shareholders / Fund closureThe BTC/LTC securities market is currently in a lot of turmoil, with a possible recovery seeming more distant every day. BTC security exchanges are closing down due to regulations, making most securities much harder or even impossible to trade. Trust in the markets is at an all-time low, as coins are being transferred out of the market and coins stored as cash in a wallet seem to be the safest investment.
At the same time, a lot of operators of securities have proven to be untrustworthy, in many cases rendering their stocks worthless. Other securities are not listed on any exchange any more, making it impossible to get a fair market price for them. With such a limited amount of securities to choose from and the current liquidity, the service of stock picking for buy and hold by a 3rd party (like this fund) does not make much sense any longer.
Because of these environmental changes in the last months, we have decided to close down the fund as of
Dec 31st, 2013. As we never had an IPO and always operated in private mode, we currently have 17 private investors left, who have been informed via e-mail about the details of the wind down.
Here is the extract from the business plan about a possible closure:
Fund Closure
Management reserves the right to close this fund for any reason giving 30 days’ notice. All assets in the fund will be liquidated on the respective markets. Distribution to shareholders will be done according to a public, defined timeline and action plan.
The wind down will be done in a professional and structured manner, of course with the same rules applying to the shares from the management team, who invested BTC 24.6349 as starting capital on July 21st, 2013.
Investors will be able to choose the week in which they want their payout to happen from this week until the week of Dec 31st. This gives you more flexibility, i.e. if you believe that the NAV might increase with the current portfolio that the fund holds, it might be better to delay the payout. If you believe otherwise, it might make sense for you to cash out now. These share buybacks will be processed like they have been since the start of the fund, to give everyone a fair chance to buy and sell their investment at all times.
Even though the performance of our venture did not in any way meet the expectations, I would like to thank you for this interesting and instructive journey through these rough times, wishing you all the best for your future endeavors.