OSLO– EDW Lynch Social Tsar T. Argyle Funston-Nakamoto qui­eted months of spec­u­la­tion today by offi­cially announc­ing a major sell off of sub-prime friend assets. The sale is part of a social restruc­tur­ing man­aged by out­side con­sul­tant Watkins & Fox.

“Due to cur­rent social mar­ket con­di­tions and in par­tic­u­lar, ram­pant friend infla­tion, EDW Lynch has agreed to sell approx­i­mately 55 per­cent of its Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­ber hold­ings to Social Equity Invest­ment,” announced Funston-Nakamoto at the Oslo Nordic Arts Cen­ter and Smörgås­bord. Social Equity Invest­ments Ltd., a part­ner­ship of Zürich-based Fre­un­de­bank GmBH and Dubai-based social hedge fund Desert Dia­mond Part­ners, noted in a state­ment that they are “deeply pleased” to add the for­mer Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­bers to their invest­ment port­fo­lio and “pre­dict strong gains in these value-added friend oppor­tu­ni­ties.” The part­ner­ship pur­chased the mem­bers as Growth Pos­i­tive Friend Secu­ri­ties, which means they will be tak­ing on all debts and lia­bil­i­ties of those friend­ships, such as unre­turned text mes­sages, bor­rowed cloth­ing items, or per­son­al­ity downturns.

Tsar Funston-Nakamoto said the land­mark sale would have “no effect what­so­ever” on the ongo­ing work of the Social Surge, now enter­ing its sec­ond year.

BANGKOK– EDW Lynch Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ Direc­tor F. Carl­ton Rodriguez-Rodriguez responded today to rumors of a so-called “sub-prime friend cri­sis” in the Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­ber net­work. In a care­fully chore­o­graphed ques­tion and answer ses­sion at Golden Silk City Con­ven­tion Cen­ter held before key mem­bers of the human­i­tar­ian press, Rodriguez-Rodriguez sought to down­play leaked por­tions of a Watkins & Fox audit of the Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ members.

F. Carl­ton opened by not­ing that “what we have here is a draft report that has not even been pre­sented to the EDW Lynch board. So I can­not and will not respond specif­i­cally to any alleged con­clu­sions stated in this report.”

Susan Schnell­hund of Human­i­tar­ian Fancy Mag­a­zine cited sta­tis­tics in the report that listed a sub­stan­tial por­tion of the Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­ber net­work as “not invest­ment grade” and “sub-prime”,” and asked whether “the num­ber of mem­bers in the top or ‘Elite’ tier of Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ are in fact grossly inflated.”

F. Carl­ton responded vig­or­ously: “I take issue with your ques­tion and your use of the term ‘sub-prime.’ The Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­ber pro­gram is the pre­miere cor­po­rate friend net­work on the Pacific Rim. I think it is ludi­crous and irre­spon­si­ble for you to try and paint it with the ‘sub-prime brush,’ so I sim­ply not going to fur­ther enter­tain your question.”

Marty Putz of EDW Lynch Watch asked, “with the appar­ent col­lapse of the Social Surge and now this cri­sis in the EDW Lynch mem­ber appre­ci­a­tion net­work, are we see­ing an over­all man­age­ment fail­ure at EDW Lynch?”

“I reject entirely the ‘slip­pery slope’ anal­ogy you’re try­ing to prop­a­gate here,” responded F. Carl­ton. “I can­not speak to the Surge as that is under the aegis of T. Argyle, our Social Tsar. But I can say that many out­side fac­tors, includ­ing a weak first quar­ter Friend Mar­ket, as well as a gen­eral world­wide increase in Awk­ward­ness infla­tion, has pre­sented an enor­mous chal­lenge to the EDW Lynch man­age­ment team. I think we’re try­ing some­thing fairly rev­o­lu­tion­ary here so a cer­tain amount of kick­back is to be expected. I don’t think its time to start ring­ing alarm bells. I’d say we’re within expected limits.”

Marty Putz: “But what about the 26% response rate on text mes­sages, or the 68% of Elite mem­ber accounts that have been inac­tive for more than 60 days, or the 6-my mistake-16 Moments of Awk­ward­ness logged just in Jan­u­ary and February?”

F. Carl­ton: “Fa-la-la-la-la-la! I can’t hear you! No more questions!”

GULF OF DUBAI-Transcript fol­lows of a press con­fer­ence held by EDW Lynch LLC Social Resource Tsar T. Argyle Funston-Nakamoto aboard the per­sonal yacht of His Royal Serene Majesty Prince Haji Bali Maa­liki the Crown Prince of Dubai.

T. Argyle:
Thank you all for com­ing here via heli­copter and speed­boat on such sort notice. I’m going to make a state­ment after which I will be tak­ing no ques­tions whatsoever.

The Social Surge com­po­nent of last year’s 2007 Yes! cam­paign was never meant to be a tem­po­rary effort. The meth­ods of the Surge are com­plex and lay­ered and the goals are ambi­tious. It was ini­ti­ated as a rev­o­lu­tion in Social Resources at E. D. W. Lynch, and in that sense it has been an unequiv­o­cal suc­cess. We’ve seen dra­matic improve­ments in key social met­rics, as noted in my report on the Surge last fall. Awk­ward­ness: sub­stan­tially decreased. Text mes­sages: flow­ing freely. Hugs: 400% more embracing.

I now want to address head-on the wide­spread rumors in the press about an alleged report by our audit­ing firm Watkins and Fox, that sup­pos­edly indi­cates seri­ous and wide­spread fail­ures and pull­backs in the var­i­ous Surge operations.

It is hope­lessly sim­plis­tic and irre­spon­si­ble to paint the Social Surge as a fail­ure due to a few alleged set­backs in our social met­rics. The sim­ple fact is, the Surge is as vital and active as ever. To claim that Moments of Awk­ward­ness are ‘increas­ing alarm­ingly’ or to use phrases like ‘total dis­ar­ray’ or to refer to Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­bers as ‘down­graded to non-investment grade’ is to not under­stand the long range focus of our efforts. The social oper­a­tions we under­take are some­times very risky. We fully expect a cer­tain notable per­cent­age of those oper­a­tions to end in non-ideal out­comes. It is part of the process and the pos­si­bil­ity of Moments of Awk­ward­ness and other col­lat­eral issues was clearly out­lined in our prospec­tus released at the launch of the Social Surge in 2007.

Now I’m not going to dis­cuss here tonight the min­u­tae of what sup­posed Moments of Awk­ward­ness have occurred, or what pos­si­ble audit­ing may be hap­pen­ing over in our Pre­ferred Rhom­bus™ mem­ber depart­ment. But I will tell you that we take any set­backs in the course of our oper­a­tions very seri­ously and we’re con­stantly reeval­u­at­ing and evolv­ing as the Surge itself evolves.

I will close be announc­ing that E. D. W. Lynch will be pre­sent­ing some bold and excit­ing new pro­grams in the com­ing weeks, includ­ing a new phase of the Social Surge. Thank you, and good night. No questions.

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