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  "documentTitle": "Sino-Forest Corporation (TRE)",
  "authorId": "51_Muddy_Waters",
  "authorName": "Carson C. Block",
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  "sourceTypeSlug": "short_seller",
  "sourceTypeLabel": "Short seller",
  "presentationDate": "2011-06-02 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "The slide features a complex organizational chart showing at least 20 BVI entities, used to argue that the structure is unnecessarily opaque.",
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      "text": "This structure is highly opaque, and in our view, unnecessary for legitimate business purposes.",
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      "text": "In TRE’s 2010 annual information form, it discloses that it has at least 20 British Virgin Island (“BVI”) entities. As a recent South China Morning Post article points out, BVI is the favorite domicile of Chinese seeking opacity. There is no public shareholder registry, and there are no requirements to file tax returns. TRE no longer discloses its organizational chart, but the last one made available in an annual information statement is from 2007 – see below. This structure is highly opaque, and in our view, unnecessary for legitimate business purposes. It is not a tax-optimized structure either due to direct ownership of PRC entities by BVI subsidiaries. (Dividends remitted to Hong Kong holding companies are taxed at a lower rate than dividends to BVI owners.) We therefore pose the following question to TRE’s management (given its emphasis on its transparency): “Why have you structured the business in this way?”",
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      "kind": "title",
      "text": "VIII. Egregiously Complex and Opaque Offshore Structure",
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