CONCERNS are swirling that Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation (JRF), the US-based debt collection company at the heart of accusations of inhumane treatment of Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC) debtors, is preparing to leave the country.

Attorney-at-law Anthony Levy, representing prominent businessman Jean-Marie Desulme of Thermo Plastics in a lawsuit against the JRF, has voiced reservation that current activity at the company strongly suggests that winding-down operations are in progress.

Levy’s concerns are being echoed by members of the Association of Finsac’d Entrepreneurs (AFE) who fear that the agency, having done them what they perceive as a disservice, may now be leaving the country rather than making full disclosure on its operations at the ongoing FINSAC enquiry.

“They are now selling off assets way below market value,” claimed Levy, who added that the long-time head of the company, American Janet Farrow, has placed her house on the market and appeared to be taking steps to leave Jamaica.

“I know as a fact that she has put her house up for sale a couple months ago,” Levy told the Sunday Observer.

Citing an example of JRF’s current fire-sale, Levy said that the St Ann resort property Carinosa, a seized asset owned by the company, was quickly sold for $5.2 million although the asking price was in the region of $12 million only a few months ago.

Carinosa was on the market demanding top dollar for almost 10 years as the JRF website promoted itself as the largest holder of real estate in the island.

Levy told the Sunday Observer that a significant number of other properties are being heavily discounted by JRF, he believes, in preparation for the company to leave the island.

When the Sunday Observer called the JRF for information on the company’s status two weeks ago, we were told that Farrow was no longer with the JRF and her replacement — Rob Neff –was off the island.

“Miss Farrow is no longer representing the company in Jamaica,” a company representative said on the phone.

The JRF representative, speaking reservedly, would not disclose whether Farrow was still in Jamaica, neither would she confirm nor deny a scaling-down of operations at the debt collecting agency.

“You’ll have to wait until Mr Neff returns next week,” she insisted, adding that she could not speak on the matter as she is not so authorised.

Attorney-at-law Sandra Minott-Phillips, representing JRF, also refused to comment on the status of the debt-collection firm, instead referring queries to Neff as “only he could speak on such matters”.

The Sunday Observer again contacted the JRF last Friday and was told that Neff was still off the island and this time no specific date could be given for his arrival.

David Wong-Ken, attorney-at-law representing the AFE, while admitting that he had no concrete evidence to suggest that JRF was leaving, said that it would come as no surprise.

“They have already made so much money, it is obscene,” Wong-Ken commented.

“It is less attractive to them now than it was at the beginning,” he continued.

“The easy life is over,” Wong Ken added, saying that the operations of JRF were now coming under greater scrutiny.

The JRF, a company connected to Beal bank in the US, has been accused of charging highly prohibitive interests on the bad debt portfolio and taking an unco-operative approach to debtors since taking over FINSAC assets.

After the 1990s financial meltdown, the Government sold the FINSAC debt portfolio to JRF at a highly discounted rate with the agreement that a percentage of the returns from the sale of seized assets would be paid over to Finsac.

The sliding-scale arrangement which entitled the Jamaican Government to a percentage of all gross collections could place JRF at a disadvantage as time progressed.

In the deal, the Government would receive 15 per cent of the first US$50 million collected, 25 per cent of the next US$50 million, and 35 per cent of the next US$50 million, reducing JRF’s profits each cycle.

In the meantime, numerous debtors making presentations in the ongoing FINSAC enquiry have testified to onerous interest rates being charged on the amounts owed.

Among the latest was Vera Donaldson, an elderly woman who recently told the enquiry that the JRF sold her family home without adequate notification after she used the property to guarantee a $1 million loan for her daughter in 1993.

According to Donaldson, she was told by the JRF in 2008 that the $1 million loan had grown to a $111 million debt.

Debtors have long complained that interest rates charged by JRF are onerous, adding that even as they dispose of seized properties, the collection firm refuses to provide statements of accounts to the indebted entrepreneurs.

There have also been charges that the bulk of returns from the sale of local assets, totalling billions of dollars, are exported to the US by JRF.

The enquiry into the 1990s financial meltdown and subsequent actions by Finsac and its agencies continues next January at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.