If I told you there was a way to have the government pay you $1,500 a year for the rest of your life, would you be interested? 

I’ve loved Fiddler on the Roof for decades, along with other musical/light opera works like The Mikado and HMCS Pinafore.  Aside from being entertaining they also help to put some of life’s ups and downs into a more optimistic perspective.

I still haven’t quite gotten to the point of singing or laughing about the money I invested in Crocus, but I certainly am starting to see some humour and entertainment value in it. For example take this article I found on the internet where Sherman Kreiner waxes eloquent on subjects like the; Quebec Solidarity Fund, Labour-Sponsored Investment Funds are a Success Story, and The Problem of “Rent-A-Union” Funds.

Given his current employment and involvement with the University of Winnipeg and activities of the U of W Foundation where he rubs shoulders with the cream of the Winnipeg financial and social butterflies, perhaps his wisdom extends far past the article I just referred to - even if Ontario has completely pulled the plug on LSIFs.

But, but, but you see it’s the last item on ‘Rent-A-Union Funds” that struck me as funny after I happen to read something in the Freep’s business section the other day by Martin Cash. It seem that the Ensis Growth Fund, which despite having been subject to the same regulations as the Crocus Investment Fund, has managed to avoid virtually all of the pitfalls and problems that happened to Crocus, is now preparing to be joined in marriage or assimilated with a recent Crocus suitor that the Receiver rejected.

I suppose the Receiver had his reasons, and to confess I was never overjoyed about Growthworks possibly taking over Crocus. The why part is a long story, and even the readers digest version would turn this into a novel, but suffice it to say when I learned Crocus spent money to set up  union charities that were never going to produce a cash flow - crap like the Manitoba Center for Labour Capital (requires PowerPoint Viewer - download free here) and the trail lead right back to the Ken Georgetti and the CLC’s SHARE enterprises. I figured that I’d had just about enough of ‘real McCoy‘ Labour Sponsored Funds, especially since a comparison against Ensis was essentially a true apples to apples - oranges to comparison regardless of the ‘Rent-A-Union’ spin.

So what’s this got to do with Growthworks and David Levi. Well you see there happens to be a David Levi on the Board of Directors of Ken Georgetti and the CLC’s SHARE enterprise; listed as David Levi, President & CEO, Working Enterprises. Matter of fact here’s something David Levi once said: Shareholders have a right to fair disclosure by the company.

So how does the CLC relate to the Manitoba Center for Labour? Because Rob Hilliard and the MCLC were the local missionaries for the CLC’s SHARE enterprise. Of course most traces, but not all, of the seminars Hilliard had set up when Crocus tanked have long since disappeared from the Internet.

David Levi’s Growthworks has done very well with a large variety various funds. They operate in the jurisdictions of several Canadian Security regulators, so far without any apparent problems, just as Ensis Funds has done. Both he and Georgetti seem to be obviously well regarded in labour and financial circles. In fact they both contribute on other boards as well.

For the curious here’s a few more commercial web links to Working Enterprises and how diversified it is. Now I’m not anti union, and even though it looks like Ensis is going to loose it’s ‘Rent-A-Union’ label, I sure hope everything works out well for them and it’s current and future investors. The current drought of venture capital in this province isn’t good, and I like it even less when the government starts creating it’s own sources from taxpayer funds.

 Of course I still get a giggle over the bit about the government giving someone $1500 a year for life, and I don’t mean the one at the top of this blog entry - I mean this one.

Lots of links in this one, and it might take a while to get through it, so I thought I’d toss in a link to another musical piece from Fiddler on the Roof in case you’ve gotten tired of listening to ‘If I were a rich man‘.