• Growth Ventures, Inc.
8480 E. Orchard Road
Suite 3600
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Empresa: 303-713-1802
Celular: 303-898-0351
Fax: 303-713-1803
www.growthventuresinc.com
•
March 5th, 2009
Lic. Miguel Sánchez,
Conozco a Ron Gollehon hace aproximádamente 25 años. A principios de
1980, Yo era corredor de la bolsa de valores en Denver, Colorado, de una firma llamada E. J. Pittock & Co. Tenía bajo mi mando varios asistentes que trabajaban para mi. Uno de ellos conocía a Ron Gollehon y lo ayudó a abrir una cuenta en nuestra Firma para que él pudiera comprar y vender Acciones de la Bolsa. Me mantuve en contacto con Ron y cuando me retire del negocio de la Bolsa de Valores en 1986 y comencé mi propio negocio el cual fusiona compañías públicas o privadas. Esto me ha dado un muy exitoso negocio, y las fusiones realizadas nos han dado más de $2 billones de dólares para fondos de la propia empresa y así ayudarlos al crecimiento después de que las fusiones se llevaron a cabo.
Mientras hacía mi propio negocio de Corredor, Ron entonces estaba haciendo también su propio y exitoso negocio de Bienes Raíces. Ron vivía en Denver, Colorado, pero sus actividades no estaban limitadas solo a Denver. Ron constantemente se involucraba en el negocio de los bienes raíces en otras ciudades del Estado de Colorado tales como Vail y Aspen, Colorado. Ron también invirtió por si solo con sus propios recursos. El podría comprar terrenos al norte de Denver donde 120 casas podrían construirse en esa tierra, podría involucrarse en una gran compra en el Estado de Missouri, o en el estado de Florida.
Nunca me sorprendía en lo que Ron se involucraba. Se podía ver que él siempre se involucraba en diferentes negocios de Bienes Raíces como un reto mas, y siempre encontraba a la gente que aportaba el dinero hasta llevar el proyecto a su terminación.
Por lo tanto, cuando Ron me busco a finales del año 2005 para proponerme invertir en Mazatlán, le preste atención pues sabia que estaba en una etapa nueva de crecimiento en lo que se refiere a bienes raíces y que sería de gran éxito para él. El me describió a Mazatlán como una bellísima pequeña ciudad que estaba lista para un explosivo crecimiento, cerca del mar y en La Isla, Isla Marina. El pensó que sería fantástico vivir en La Isla, levantarse en la mañana y al ver a través de la ventana, ver su bote anclado en su propio muelle afuera de su casa. El me dijo que yo debería comprarme una casa ahí.
Fui a Mazatlán con Ron. En donde él se enamoro de la idea de tener una casa ahí, y al caminar en La Isla me dí una idea de lo que podría llegar a ser esa Isla, y creció mi interés en adquirir un edificio de condominios en La Isla, y buscamos información y entendimos que los muelles de cada una de las casas podrían tener un bote grande y que alrededor de 1,000 barcos y botes de diferentes tamaños podrían anclar en La Marina. Cuando la gente tiene grandes y caros juguetes (botes), necesitan lugares en donde ponerlos, así que nosotros sentimos que La Isla podría tener clientes de muy buenos recursos económicos, tales como la gente en Vail y Aspen, exactamente el tipo de gente con los cuales Ron trabajó por mas de 25 años.
Y como resultado de lo que Ron y yo sentimos que La Isla podría ser, nos entrevistamos con Manuel, el desarrollador de casas y condominios en La Isla. Le dijimos a él que cada uno de nosotros podría comprar una casa en La Isla, y que no habría ningún problema por pagar en efectivo, pues solo se requería $1 millón por parte nuestra, pero le dijimos que preferíamos hacerlo a manera de pagos a cierto plazo, y que si se hacía en esos términos, le compraríamos 7 casas y 2 edificios de condominios y nosotros podríamos poner algo mas de $2 millones de dólares
para ayudarlo a construir, después pagaríamos el resto del dinero al terminarse de construir los edificios y las casas.
Ron hizo planes para obtener su casa y vivir permanentemente en la Isla Mazatlán, y yo planeaba venir periódicamente a mi penthouse. De hecho, hablamos de poner los condominios al alcance de los banqueros inversionistas de Wall Street para que lo usaran cuando yo no estuviera ahí para que ellos les recomendaran a otras gentes sobre Mazatlán y así me ayudarían a continuar con mi negocio.
Ron pensó que al estar las construcciones al 90% construidas, él podría traer gente interesada en comprar.
Hicimos contratos con Manuel y le dimos aproximadamente $2.6 millones de dólares entre Ron, yo mismo, y de algunos de nuestros clientes.
Por ejemplo, Ron le dijo a Tom Bissmeyer que viniera a Mazatlán. Tom vió la oportunidad y dio un enganche o pago de $300,000 USD por una casa en la cual Ron tenía ya un contrato con Manuel.
Tom Bissmeyer viaja por todos los Estados Unidos y habla frente a miles de personas acerca de invertir en bienes raíces.
La empresa de Tom Bissmeyer mueve millones de dólares en bienes raíces. Por ejemplo; en Mississippi, inmediatamente después del huracán Katrina, Tom
pudo juntar inversionistas y llevo a cabo una pre-venta de condos en un evento por 2 días y la pre-venta fue por mas de $60 millones de dólares.
Bueno, a Tom le gusto mucho Mazatlán, y vio la oportunidad en La Isla, quería comprarse una casa ahí y vender millones de dólares en bienes raíces en La Isla, así es que le dio un cheque por $300,000 a Manuel.
Ron y yo trajimos mucha gente asi. Al principio todo parecía tan emocionante pues Manuel parecía decir la verdad, y sentimos que estábamos en el lugar correcto. Desafortunadamente, mientras Ron seguía trabajando arduamente, Manuel no hacía lo que nos había prometido. No terminaba las casas, no terminaba los edificios y empezo a doble vender las propiedades.
Ron y yo sinceramente creemos que si Manuel hubiera sido honesto, Ron y yo
hubiéramos duplicado o triplicado la cantidad de dinero con la que empezamos en Mazatlán y que hubiéramos obtenido mas de $20 millones en ganancias de las ventas de bienes raíces en Mazatlán, Manuel hubiera ganado millones de dólares, y Mazatlán hubiera tenido una bellísima Isla con gente de alto poder adquisitivo.
Desafortunadamente, Mazatlán ha sido un desastre, y Manuel un ladrón a quien se le ha dejado operar libremente dañando la reputación de Mazatlán terriblemente.
Y con todo esto, me ha impresionado la manera como mi socio Ron Gollehon, ha manejado la situación. El siempre ha sido honesto y justo con todos nosotros.
Manuel ha afectando la reputación de Mazatlán. Sabiendo que hubiéramos podido haber ganado mas de $20 millones de dólares que hubiéramos traido a Mazatlán con todos los contratos que hubiéramos vendido, Ron nunca ha pedido esas cantidades como una manera de llegar a un acuerdo, solamente ha pedido que se nos entregue lo que se nos prometió, o que se nos regrese nuestro dinero.
Y aún bajo amenaza de muerte, Ron no le ha huido al problema, sino que ha seguido trabajando día tras día para poder resolver este problema. Esto no ha sido nada fácil puesto que Manuel es Mexicano y Ron es extranjero. Es muy fácil para Manuel el estar en Mazatlán y defenderse, pero es muy difícil y costoso, y estar lejos de su familia para Ron. También, Ron es extranjero y le ha sido muy difícil tener que enfrentar la situación sin hablar español y no esta acostumbrado a la cultura y las costumbres del pueblo Mexicano.
Uno nunca se da cuenta como puede la gente responder bajo presión hasta que los ves en esas circunstancias. Debo decir, que ha sido sumamente difícil, a Ron se le ha amenazado su vida en Mazatlán.
Le dispararon un balazo a la ventana de su oficina, y se nos robo también la oportunidad de trabajar y ganar en Mazatlán.
Y Ron ha gastado mucho dinero en estos 3 años que ha tenido que estar trabajando en Mazatlán.
Con todo esto, Ron ha sido honesto, ético y trabajador para lograr resolver este problema y devolvernos nuestro dinero, puesto que lo que Manuel prometió nunca fue terminado.
Desde luego nosotros nunca esperamos que sucediera esta clase de situaciones cuando decidimos comprar propiedades en Mazatlán. Pero como las cosas se han ido agravando de mal a peor no sabía como iba a reaccionar Ron bajo tanta presión, y debo decir que observando su comportamiento, siento que no pude haber escogido mejor socio puesto que no solo ve por nuestros intereses o los de él, sino por todos los que están involucrados.
Sincerely,
Gary J. McAdam
President
Growth Ventures, Inc.
Growth Ventures, Inc.
8480 E. Orchard Road
Suite 3600
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Bus: 303-713-1802
Cell: 303-898-0351
Fax: 303-713-1803
www.growthventuresinc.com
March 5th, 2009
Miguel,
I have known Ron Gollehon for approximately 25 years. In the early 1980’s, I was a stock broker in Denver, Colorado, at a firm called E. J. Pittock & Co. I had some assistants that worked for me. One of them knew Ron Gollehon and helped him to open an account at our firm so that he could buy and sell stocks. I continued to stay in touch with Ron when I retired from the stock business in 1986 and began my own firm which merges private and public companies. It has been a very successful business and the mergers that I have done have been able to attract over $2 billion dollars of equity to help them grow after the mergers were completed.
While I was building a successful brokerage business, Ron was building a successful real estate business. Ron resided in Denver, Colorado, but he did not limit his real estate practices to Denver. Ron consistently got involved in real estate transactions in other cities in Colorado such as Vail and Aspen, Colorado. As a result of his practice, he rubbed shoulders with many well to do individuals. Ron also invested in real estate for his own personal holdings. He might buy a tract of develop land north of Denver where 120 homes could be built on the land, he might be involved in a large real estate play out of state in Missouri, or he may be involved in a high rise in Florida.
It never surprised me as to what Ron was getting involved in. He always seemed to be taking on different real estate challenges and then finding people and money to assist in making the projects come to completion.
Therefore, when Ron approached me about Mazatlan in late 2005, I paid attention as I knew that early stage real estate was an area of great success for him. He described Mazatlan as a gorgeous small city that was getting ready for explosive growth both on the ocean, but more importantly he felt on an in land island, Isla Marina. He thought it would be fantastic to live on the Island, wake up in the morning, look out, and have all of these beautiful yachts parked right outside his home. He told me I should buy a home there.
I went down to Mazatlan with Ron. Where Ron loved the idea of a home, as I walked the island and envisioned what it could become, my lifestyle led me to have more interest in owning a penthouse in a condo building on the island. We gathered information and understood that the slips surrounding the houses would be able to accommodate very large yachts and that over 1,000 ships and boats of various sizes could be attracted to the marina. When people have big and expensive toys (boats), they need places to also stay, and so we felt the island could sell out to very wealthy individuals. In fact, very wealthy individuals, such as the wealthy type that come to Vail and Aspen were exactly the type of people that Ron had over 25 years of experience working with.
As a result of what Ron and I felt the island could become, we met with Manuel, the builder of homes and condos on the island. We told him that we could each buy a home on the island, and that it would not be a problem paying cash as that would only require about $1 million from us, but we told him what we would prefer to do is make some down payments on a number of homes and a couple of condo buildings. If he would give us terms, we would be willing to buy 7 homes and 2 condo buildings and we would be willing to come up with well over $2 million to help him build, and then we would pay the balance of the money after the homes and condos were completed.
Ron planned for his permanent home to be on Isla Mazatlan, and I planned to be down to my penthouse periodically. In fact, we talked about making the condo available for Wall Street investment bankers to use when I was not there as that would expose wealthy people to Mazatlan and help me to continue to develop stronger relationships with people in my business.
Ron felt that when the homes and condos were about 90% built, he would be able to bring people down and be able to market the homes and real estate quite easily. We entered into contracts with Manuel and came up with approximately $2.6 million between Ron, myself, and a couple of our early clients. As an example, Ron had Tom Bissmeyer come down to Mazatlan. Tom saw the opportunity and made a down payment of $300,000 on a home that Ron and I had a contract to buy from Manuel.
Tom Bissmeyer is very unique. Tom travels the United States speaking in front of audiences of 1,000’s of people on real estate investing. Tom’s firm moves tremendous amounts of real estate. As an example, in Mississippi, shortly after the devastation of hurricane Katrina, Tom was able to pull together investors and pre-sell over $60 million dollars of condos during a 2 day event. Well, Tom loved the island in Mazatlan, saw the opportunity on the island, wanted to own a house, and wanted to market millions of dollars of real estate on the island, so he wrote a $300,000 check that he gave to Manuel.
Ron and I brought down many people like this, some doctors who were thinking of establishing a medical clinic off of the Island and having their homes on the island, etc. At first it was very exciting as Manuel said the right things, and we were in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, as Ron was working very hard, over time, Manuel was not doing any of the things he promised. He was not completing the homes, was not building timely, and started double selling the properties.
Ron and I believe that if Manuel would have been honest, Ron and I would have been able to double or triple the amount of real estate we started with in Mazatlan and that we would have made over $20 million dollars in real estate profits in Mazatlan, Manuel would have made millions of dollars, and Mazatlan would have a beautifully built out island that would have very wealthy people owning the real estate and bringing their yachts to Mazatlan. Unfortunately, Mazatlan has been a disaster, so far. Manuel is a crook and has been allowed to freely operate, damage the reputation of doing real estate in Mexico, and he has badly hurt Mazatlan’s reputation.
Throughout all of this, I have been positively shocked at how my partner, Ron Gollehon, has conducted himself. He has been very fair with everyone. He has worked hard to show proof to the appropriate parties aware that Manuel should be dealt with as he is negatively effecting the reputation of Mazatlan. Knowing that we could have probably made $20 million or more with the contacts we could have brought down to Mazatlan, Ron has never brought those kind of numbers up as a settlement. Rather, he has only asked that we and our investors get the property we were promised or get our money back.
Even under the threat of death, Ron has not run from the problem but has worked day after day with the appropriate people in Mazatlan to resolve the problem. This is not easy as Manuel is Mexican and Ron is a foreigner. Staying and defending himself in Mazatlan is easy for Manuel. It is difficult, time consuming, costly, and requires Ron to be away from his family. Also, Ron is a foreigner having to deal with the issues when he doesn’t speak the language and was not raised in the culture or the customs of the people of Mexico.
You never really know how people will respond under pressure until you actually see them in that circumstance. I must say, this has been a very difficult ordeal. Ron has had his life threatened in Mazatlan. There was a bullet shot through his office glass into his wall. We have been robbed of the opportunity to make a big profit in Mazatlan. And Ron has spent a lot of money and 3 years of work down in Mazatlan. Through all this, Ron has been amazingly fair, honest, ethical, and hard working in order to seek a resolution that helps Mazatlan, helps Isla Mazatlan, and returns the money to the investors since the job was never completed by Manuel.
Of course we never expected this kind of challenge when we decided to buy property in Mazatlan. As things have gotten progressively worse and more challenging to deal with in Mazatlan, I did not know how Ron would react under this kind of pressure, but I must say that witnessing his behavior, I feel that I could not have picked a better or more fair partner who is looking out not only for his and his investors interest, but the interests of Mazatlan and everybody involved.
Sincerely,
Gary J. McAdam
President
Growth Ventures, Inc.
CLINTON BLUMMarzo 6, 2009
Asunto: Ronald D. Gollehon
Conozco y he trabajado con Ronald Gollehon desde el año 1993. El y su familia se cambiaron a mi vecindario y nos conocimos muy bien. En 1995 le pedí a Ronald que me asesorara con las ventas de un desarrollo de lujo llamado Polo Reserve, en Littleton, Colorado USA.
Juntos exitosamente comercializamos y vendimos 87 terrenos y ayudamos a los compradores a construir sus lujosas e individuales casas en esos lotes que superaron los $100,000,000 USD en total.
Ronald fue fundamental para el éxito del proyecto, pues sus habilidades para ventas y negociaciones son insuperables.
En el año 2000 formamos una sociedad y contratamos 200 acres en Aspen, Colorado USA y 760 acres en Firestone, Colorado USA. Juntos planeamos, procesamos y vendimos las propiedades en los últimos 8 años.
La perseverancia y el arduo trabajo de Ronald fué fundamental para el éxito de ambos proyectos.
El es un valioso amigo y confidente.
SIN MAS QUE AGREGAR EL DECLARANTE.
________/S/________________
Clinton M. Blum
SUSCRITO Y JURADO ante mí el día 6 de Marzo 2009
We are fractional owners of home #34 from Cannon Beach, OR. We purchased in Feb 2007. Supposedly the house was to be completed by Nov or Dec of 2007 as there was to be this BIG GRAND OPENING celebration that we were to be notified and invited to in December 2007. Never happened! When we went to Mazatlan in June 2007 to check why we were not getting any kind of response back from Manual Cristerna, or his "PR Man" Federico Medrano Barros, we showed up and chased them down. We had a meeting with Federico and he assured us that our home would be ready before we arrived in Feb 2008. Federico said that he would email us pictures to show us of the progress being made on our place. In Feb 2008, when we arrived, our house was not even close to being completed. They had to put us up in another house for our month. In the house that they put us in, it was tastefully furnished but there was still no satellite tv, phone or many of the things that were listed in the contract that we signed. We had to fix the pool ourselves because it did not work. Again, they promised by the next year Feb 2009 that our house would be completed and we would not have to worry about anything. While we were there in 2008, the construction on our home was making progress but when we showed up in Nov 2008, unannounced, no further progress had been made. Obviously, everything just stopped once we left. In Feb 2009 when we arrived, we were given the keys to yet a different house that had no pool, no yard, no dock access, many things in the house were not completed, furnishings had been taken from the Villas and were soiled and ripped. Again, no satellite tv and electricity was actually being wired from the house next door. Additionally, our house #34 was stuffed full of furniture from the Villas. When we asked Federico why our house was being used to store the stolen property, he got very nervous and just laughed, like he always does and said "no no not stolen". But all the furnishings that were being stored at our house were removed within two days. But no work resumed on our house. We were inconvenienced by running out of propane and it took two days for us to get our problem taken care of, when everyone knows that you get service usually within an hour. No one at the office had any cash to pay for it. When we complained about being ripped off, they threatened to have the police throw us out. Manuel trades vehicles with his relatives when he is at the isla because doesn't want anyone knowing when he is there for fear he will be arrested again. Have no idea what Feb 2010 will bring when we arrive for our scheduled visit. Anyone else who has been scammed, please feel free to contact us.
"ripped off 34"