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HIBU Hibu

0.17
0.00 (0.00%)
28 Mar 2024 - Closed
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
Hibu LSE:HIBU London Ordinary Share GB0031718066 ORD 1P
  Price Change % Change Share Price Bid Price Offer Price High Price Low Price Open Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  0.00 0.00% 0.17 - 0.00 00:00:00
Industry Sector Turnover Profit EPS - Basic PE Ratio Market Cap
0 0 N/A 0

Hibu Share Discussion Threads

Showing 9101 to 9119 of 9400 messages
Chat Pages: 376  375  374  373  372  371  370  369  368  367  366  365  Older
DateSubjectAuthorDiscuss
19/12/2013
12:40
Well got my letter from my broker saying shares transfered to a new holding Co to be controlled by Lenders !!! 5.5m shares ........ Is it goodbye for ever !

A con in simple terms.

squire007
19/12/2013
08:38
does that kind of garbage warrant a reply??? nah

merry christmas to everyone especially the hsg (10) and all its members.

fatfish
19/12/2013
07:59
Chris Belcher,

You & the greedy 10 have put an early end to Hibu shareholders.

"I call the shots" Liquidation is very near now for HIBU Plc. your one success.

Transparency & Trust is not the modus operandi of hsg that is why it failed plus having such a forward looking leader. Your personal Greed consumed you.

You & the 10, have your members money so you did ok I bet some of you got your hibu investments back..enjoy the proceeds over Xmas have a drink on the members & hibu.

Was this a small time Belchzi scam??????
FCA may need to look into this as hsg is a plc with directors. Where are the hsg company accounts???

Merry Xmas Low life scum,
there are some lights at the old HQ that need turning off. hibu RIP

13matt13
16/12/2013
15:40
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills what representations he has received from the shareholders of Hibu following allegations of misconduct by the board of the company; and if he will make a statement.


Jo Swinson (The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills; East Dunbartonshire, Liberal Democrat)
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend Vince Cable, has received some correspondence from MPs writing on behalf of Hibu shareholders. Concerns were expressed about the restructuring of the company and the alleged misconduct of its directors. It was suggested that the use of my right hon. Friend's investigatory powers under the Companies Act and prosecution action may be appropriate.
My right hon. Friend met with several MPs on 27 November to discuss these concerns. He made clear that potential misconduct of the directors would be investigated and appropriate enforcement action considered should the company enter administration.
Hibu was placed in administration on 27 November 2013. The company's administrators have to report within six months to my right hon. Friend on the directors' conduct. He will then consider if disqualification action is appropriate and any potential criminality will be referred to the relevant prosecuting authority.

freddie ferret
11/12/2013
14:51
Hi Matt!

I would like your view on the following.







The Rape Of Polaroid
By Christopher Byron
NYPost.com
7-23-2

Get ready for yet another 10-digit accounting scandal from the world of big business: The astonishing disappearance - behind the drawn curtains of a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware - of more than $1 billion of corporate assets from the books of Polaroid Corp., and the reappearance of most of it, free of charge, in the pockets of a Wall Street buyout fund.

How this has happened stands as a cautionary reminder that bankruptcy courts are one of the riskiest places of all for investors. Yet as the economy weakens and more and more big companies keel over, that's where more and more shareholders are likely to wind up.

For what awaits them, check out the plight of bankrupted Polaroid Corp.'s shareholders, who are about to be shorn of $1.1 billion in balance sheet assets and $175 million of shareholder equity.

THE ploy? An accounting maneuver that is shifting the assets, seemingly free of charge, from Polaroid's books to the books of a Wall Street partnership that is set to take Polaroid private in a buyout for less than $24 million of actual cash money.

Some of the biggest names in high finance are involved in this stunt, from the fancy-pants law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to the infamous Arthur Andersen crowd.

There are lawyers from Davis Polk & Wardwell in the game, along with attorneys from Aiken Gump, as well as advisers from Zolfo Cooper, Houlihan Lokey and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

This is corporate embalming's A-team, and for months its members have been trudging up and down the courthouse steps of Wilmington, Del.'s federal bankruptcy court in preparation for the solemn and final act that will send Polaroid to its eternal reward.

That act will take place on July 29 in New York - most likely in the offices of one of the law firms involved - when the parties will sign on the dotted line to close the sale.

By doing so, they will convey 65 percent of Polaroid's reorganized common equity, including 65 percent of the value of those $1.1 billion worth of mysteriously missing assets, to the aforementioned Wall Street buyout fund.

According to a Polaroid spokesman, the purchase price for the shares will be $255 million. But court papers in the matter indicate that less than $24 million in net new cash will be all that the buyout fund actually hands over.

At that point, Polaroid will become a private entity and no longer required to issue public financial statements. So the company's ravaged public investors will never get to see those $1.1 billion of balance sheet assets - including a priceless corporate art collection and the stock of all Polaroid's foreign subsidiaries - magically reappear.

In reality, the assets hadn't disappeared at all. They'd simply been valued at zero for the purposes of the bankruptcy proceedings, even though the company had valued them at more than $1 billion in a public financial filing only eight weeks before going bankrupt.

In this way, balance sheet assets that Polaroid had listed in an official financial statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in August of 2001 as totaling $1.8 billion shrank by October to less than $715 million when the company entered bankruptcy.

In the process, shareholder equity - which totaled $176 million in the SEC filing - was wiped out entirely and replaced with a negative net worth of $385 million.

The chief beneficiary of these lowball numbers has of course been the aforementioned buyout fund, which bears the name One Equity Partners and is financed by Bank One Corp. of Chicago.

ONE Equity Partners, which was brought into the deal by the Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein bunch, turned out to be the only known bidder in a court-ordered auction of the company last month. As a result, its offer won, in effect, by default. "It's ridiculous," said one incredulous Wall Street analyst, speaking of the price. "Bank One is making out like bandits."

In fact, the fund could easily wind up getting the whole company for free.

For starters, Polaroid's most recent bankruptcy court filings show that as of June the company had more than $108 million of cash on its books as well as nearly $50 million of marketable receivables. On top of that, a creditor's committee report to the court late last month suggests that more cash has piled up from Polaroid's foreign operations and that the actual cash outlay of net new money by One Equity Partners will be $23.8 million.

And don't forget that once the fund is in control of the company, it will be able to recover even that money by borrowing against all those assets on Polaroid's books that had been valued at zero in the bankruptcy proceeding.

Not surprisingly, when I asked a Polaroid official to name the individual investors in One Equity Partners, he declined, saying, "It's private. We're not divulging that." When I next asked whether the fund's investors included members of Polaroid's management, he waffled and said only, "Not that I know of."

With closing day for the sale fast approaching and with so much money at stake, a cloak of secrecy and double-talk has enveloped the proceedings.

THUS, when I asked the Polaroid spokesman why the company's balance sheet assets had shrunk so dramatically between August and October, he answered only that it was because Polaroid's foreign operations were not part of the bankruptcy petition.

In reality, of course, the foreign assets were included - as they legally had to be - but were simply given no value on the submitted schedules.

When I asked why the assets had been assigned no values in the schedules, even though they'd previously been valued at more than $1 billion by the company in its SEC filings, I was told to read the company's press releases to get myself "up to speed." The press releases turned out to offer no explanation, either.

A similar request for enlightenment via Polaroid's outside public relations firm in New York brought a promise to produce a legal expert to answer questions. But no expert was produced. When I phoned back a day later for an explanation, the spokesman said, "No one is interested in talking."

Later, the man provided a transcript of some hearing testimony on the discrepancy as if it would clear everything up. It didn't.

AT the end of the hearing, the judge in the case, Peter Walsh, ruled that Polaroid's stated reasons for not having listed values for the foreign operations were reasonable because the foreign operations really only had a value as "going concerns" within Polaroid's overall global operations.

But that is simply to say that the assets of the foreign subsidiaries are entirely goodwill, which is hardly the case. Polaroid's latest annual report prior to bankruptcy lists company-owned facilities totaling more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing space in Scotland, Mexico, China and the Netherlands alone. As business failures skyrocket in the weakening economy, you can look for more of this sort of thing to come out of bankruptcy courts - especially when the money that is up for grabs is so huge.

At week's end, WorldCom was set to join Enron, Global Crossing, Adelphia and Williams Communications as the latest multi-billion-dollar behemoth to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And there will doubtless be many more.

As for Polaroid, expect to see stock in the company offered by One Equity Partners to investors all over again, via an initial public offering, as Wall Street's endless cycle, from IPO to Chapter 11 and back again, repeats itself once more. It's the way Wall Street really works, and it's why, from cradle to grave, the tricks of accounting lurk at every turn.

Copyright 2001 NYP Holdings, Inc.
All rights reserved

.........................................................................................
There is a link to the New York Post here but sadly it no longer works.
.........................................................................................

freddie ferret
10/12/2013
15:24
Hi Matt.

I think ceesby has far more important things to be doing with his time than commenting on things like the above.

I would like your view on the following.







The Rape Of Polaroid
By Christopher Byron
NYPost.com
7-23-2

Get ready for yet another 10-digit accounting scandal from the world of big business: The astonishing disappearance - behind the drawn curtains of a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware - of more than $1 billion of corporate assets from the books of Polaroid Corp., and the reappearance of most of it, free of charge, in the pockets of a Wall Street buyout fund.

How this has happened stands as a cautionary reminder that bankruptcy courts are one of the riskiest places of all for investors. Yet as the economy weakens and more and more big companies keel over, that's where more and more shareholders are likely to wind up.

For what awaits them, check out the plight of bankrupted Polaroid Corp.'s shareholders, who are about to be shorn of $1.1 billion in balance sheet assets and $175 million of shareholder equity.

THE ploy? An accounting maneuver that is shifting the assets, seemingly free of charge, from Polaroid's books to the books of a Wall Street partnership that is set to take Polaroid private in a buyout for less than $24 million of actual cash money.

Some of the biggest names in high finance are involved in this stunt, from the fancy-pants law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to the infamous Arthur Andersen crowd.

There are lawyers from Davis Polk & Wardwell in the game, along with attorneys from Aiken Gump, as well as advisers from Zolfo Cooper, Houlihan Lokey and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

This is corporate embalming's A-team, and for months its members have been trudging up and down the courthouse steps of Wilmington, Del.'s federal bankruptcy court in preparation for the solemn and final act that will send Polaroid to its eternal reward.

That act will take place on July 29 in New York - most likely in the offices of one of the law firms involved - when the parties will sign on the dotted line to close the sale.

By doing so, they will convey 65 percent of Polaroid's reorganized common equity, including 65 percent of the value of those $1.1 billion worth of mysteriously missing assets, to the aforementioned Wall Street buyout fund.

According to a Polaroid spokesman, the purchase price for the shares will be $255 million. But court papers in the matter indicate that less than $24 million in net new cash will be all that the buyout fund actually hands over.

At that point, Polaroid will become a private entity and no longer required to issue public financial statements. So the company's ravaged public investors will never get to see those $1.1 billion of balance sheet assets - including a priceless corporate art collection and the stock of all Polaroid's foreign subsidiaries - magically reappear.

In reality, the assets hadn't disappeared at all. They'd simply been valued at zero for the purposes of the bankruptcy proceedings, even though the company had valued them at more than $1 billion in a public financial filing only eight weeks before going bankrupt.

In this way, balance sheet assets that Polaroid had listed in an official financial statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in August of 2001 as totaling $1.8 billion shrank by October to less than $715 million when the company entered bankruptcy.

In the process, shareholder equity - which totaled $176 million in the SEC filing - was wiped out entirely and replaced with a negative net worth of $385 million.

The chief beneficiary of these lowball numbers has of course been the aforementioned buyout fund, which bears the name One Equity Partners and is financed by Bank One Corp. of Chicago.

ONE Equity Partners, which was brought into the deal by the Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein bunch, turned out to be the only known bidder in a court-ordered auction of the company last month. As a result, its offer won, in effect, by default. "It's ridiculous," said one incredulous Wall Street analyst, speaking of the price. "Bank One is making out like bandits."

In fact, the fund could easily wind up getting the whole company for free.

For starters, Polaroid's most recent bankruptcy court filings show that as of June the company had more than $108 million of cash on its books as well as nearly $50 million of marketable receivables. On top of that, a creditor's committee report to the court late last month suggests that more cash has piled up from Polaroid's foreign operations and that the actual cash outlay of net new money by One Equity Partners will be $23.8 million.

And don't forget that once the fund is in control of the company, it will be able to recover even that money by borrowing against all those assets on Polaroid's books that had been valued at zero in the bankruptcy proceeding.

Not surprisingly, when I asked a Polaroid official to name the individual investors in One Equity Partners, he declined, saying, "It's private. We're not divulging that." When I next asked whether the fund's investors included members of Polaroid's management, he waffled and said only, "Not that I know of."

With closing day for the sale fast approaching and with so much money at stake, a cloak of secrecy and double-talk has enveloped the proceedings.

THUS, when I asked the Polaroid spokesman why the company's balance sheet assets had shrunk so dramatically between August and October, he answered only that it was because Polaroid's foreign operations were not part of the bankruptcy petition.

In reality, of course, the foreign assets were included - as they legally had to be - but were simply given no value on the submitted schedules.

When I asked why the assets had been assigned no values in the schedules, even though they'd previously been valued at more than $1 billion by the company in its SEC filings, I was told to read the company's press releases to get myself "up to speed." The press releases turned out to offer no explanation, either.

A similar request for enlightenment via Polaroid's outside public relations firm in New York brought a promise to produce a legal expert to answer questions. But no expert was produced. When I phoned back a day later for an explanation, the spokesman said, "No one is interested in talking."

Later, the man provided a transcript of some hearing testimony on the discrepancy as if it would clear everything up. It didn't.

AT the end of the hearing, the judge in the case, Peter Walsh, ruled that Polaroid's stated reasons for not having listed values for the foreign operations were reasonable because the foreign operations really only had a value as "going concerns" within Polaroid's overall global operations.

But that is simply to say that the assets of the foreign subsidiaries are entirely goodwill, which is hardly the case. Polaroid's latest annual report prior to bankruptcy lists company-owned facilities totaling more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing space in Scotland, Mexico, China and the Netherlands alone. As business failures skyrocket in the weakening economy, you can look for more of this sort of thing to come out of bankruptcy courts - especially when the money that is up for grabs is so huge.

At week's end, WorldCom was set to join Enron, Global Crossing, Adelphia and Williams Communications as the latest multi-billion-dollar behemoth to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And there will doubtless be many more.

As for Polaroid, expect to see stock in the company offered by One Equity Partners to investors all over again, via an initial public offering, as Wall Street's endless cycle, from IPO to Chapter 11 and back again, repeats itself once more. It's the way Wall Street really works, and it's why, from cradle to grave, the tricks of accounting lurk at every turn.

Copyright 2001 NYP Holdings, Inc.
All rights reserved

.........................................................................................
There is a link to the New York Post here but sadly it no longer works.
.........................................................................................

freddie ferret
08/12/2013
18:49
Chris/Ceebsy,

From your dictat Chris, on hsg website to hsg members of which I was a member.

" We have noticed a few posts creeping in on the public boards (some with first time posts) where they are trying to scaremonger holders into believing that HSG are out to rip shareholders off and use there votes to get a hibu Directorship. They claim that after this the new directors will leave you high and dry and enjoy six figure salaries and bonuses.

This action can only be expected, however there is a lot of claims that you will never know who we are, which just goes to prove that it is utter fabrication. As mentioned several times you will get to know all about the proposed directors BEFORE you vote, so please don't let these dissident views distract your views.

As for six figure salaries and bonuses, that is not our intention, our intention is to return value to the shareholders and see what the best option for moving forward is, but primarily it is to get value for the shareholders whether it be through a settlement or removing the suspension from the shares and giving holders the opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to be in our out of hibu. This is an option denied by the current BOD.

There are of course, members from here who are joining in the dissident movement but again that is to be expected. We know who at least one of them is thanks to a bit of IP address tracing and HSG friendly admin staff on the public boards (and they are currently out of the country at the moment so it must be really bothering them)

13matt13
07/12/2013
15:21
13matt13.

Hi Matt

Let us deal with this matter logically.


The company intended to get 75% creditor approval for it's restructuring, it could not and has not.

The company intended to go to the court for approval of the restructuring the schemes of arrangement and the delisting. It did not.

Of the 200-300 creditors (lenders) it may be the case that as little as five may be in Cocom.

The fact is as the administrator confirmed to everybody the current situation from the point of view of the old directors is likely to be unsustainable. Put it another way the current restructuring is unlikely to satisfy the bulk of the 2009 creditors and they will be after the current mgmt of the subs.

Add to this the fact that the old directors are now very damaged goods as a result of revelations about Polaroid and it seems to be time out for the old directors IMHO.

freddie ferret
07/12/2013
09:13
If you joined HSG but no longer post - you are still a member even if inactive? Why not post one more time and ask other members if they wish to appoint a new steering group etc? If no one decides to come on board with you - then sometimes you have to accept what the majority want to do - whether you agree with it or not
knigel
07/12/2013
08:01
Neville Kahn, Phil Bowers and Ian Wormleighton of Deloitte LLP,
These are the three that are going to liquidate hibu Plc before end of DEC 2013

Belcher`s last chance to get a private deal for his 10 cronies lies with the creditors who own hibu.

Other than thhat there is a very very small chance Belcher will actually fight on the legal front, he never wanted to in the last 4 months, just his own greedy aims were pursued.

I am barred from the group (others to) & glad to be as I stopped posting on there anyway as he stops all proper debate & gives out no information to members.

If there were any legal information that could have been used then it would have been in the public domain anyway. Hsg has nothing from hibu plc & will get nothing.

Members need to get together & appoint a new steering group & get a proffesional practising city insolvency lawyer onto this case, this should of happened back in aug but another deal for the infamous private 10 was hatched instead.

What were the initial findings of Edwin Coe LLB on our legal case against hibu??????
Belcher had a better course of action for the infamous hsg10, lowlife

Thnks again for all your very very hard work on behalf of you hsg 10 from a former hsg member & former hibu shareholder. Shameless to the end

13matt13
06/12/2013
02:08
Like they say its daylight robbery. What is the point in holding any shairs in any company if the assets of value can be moved to a subsidery and you are left owning nothingWhen are the scum that run company's like this going to be made to understand that the shair holders own the company we employ them to run it for us
bigdrainpipe
05/12/2013
17:39
I'm not going to give a full report on the meeting.

My view on it is not in accord with most peoples and I actually believe it was productive for all parties. I think the one administrator present (three people have been appointed to act as joint administrators, all from the firm Deloitte) did his best to answer questions. Since the administrators have only been doing the job for one week I think it is understandable that at this stage he was unable to answer all questions in detail.

The point needs to be made is that it is Hibu plc that has been placed into administration the subsidiaries of Hibu plc have not been placed into administration. The core 2.3bln debt is not chargeable against Hibu plc but against the subsidiaries. The reason for Hibu plc being put into administration is that the subsidiary companies (or at least their directors) have decided to cease financing Hibu plc. Since Hibu plc is for all practical purposes a shell its costs are only something like £1.25m a year.

Of course the costs of maintaining Hibu plc are not the reason for the directors of the subsidiary companies putting Hibu plc into administration. The reason for this is that they needed to thwart the HSG in its bid to gain control and access to Hibu internal information. If Hibu plc had not been put into administration the new directors elected at the EGM would have been in a majority and would have taken control ousting the old directors.

Given that the old directors are hell bent on maintaining control for their own purposes it is not surprising that they have gone down this route.




The situation is now IMHO very, very complex, there are many possible routes of action for the HSG and the directors controlling Hibu subsidiaries. I am not privy to the inner workings of the HSG steering committee, if I was I would not divulge that material on this thread.

In the meantime the administrators have a job to do and that involves collating all available information. I believe after yesterday they will have gone away far far better informed than they were before. I actually feel rather sorry for the people that had to answer questions yesterday.

The business that was scheduled for the EGM was transacted, the new directors were elected. To some this may seem to be token, or a waste of time. However we do know things are more complex than they seem, there are some residual powers of directors that remain after a company has been put into administration. Again some in their dreams may think of bringing Hibu plc out of administration however I can see problems with relisting since the shares have been cancelled (by the FCA and not as is normal in these situations by the LSE, interesting that (why?).

freddie ferret
05/12/2013
07:23
BIS & "Shareholders voted to contact the Serious Fraud Office"

need to be forced to take action, that would be a very good starting point for
shareholders, why was this not done back in July????

Its been out there in the media three directors of yellowbook are being sued by hibu.

13matt13
04/12/2013
21:05
All of us know this is the real Bob Wigley:

But what happened to his Hibu shares????...
Who has been cheated?...
That is all I want to know.

john168
04/12/2013
18:46
Well surely the new directors will have access to old paperwork unless that's been shifted across to the new co too!
knigel
04/12/2013
18:32
no just read the newspapers copied and pasted the article :-)
fatfish
04/12/2013
17:29
So u were there then Matt?
knigel
04/12/2013
17:20
So as I said nothing for shareholders. Nothing for hsg 10, directors in name only.


"Phil Bowers, partner at administrators Deloitte, who chaired the meeting, said he was "happy to engage in dialogue" with the new directors, while insisting they have no executive powers because hibu was put into administration last Wednesday. The subsidiary companies have continued to trade.

Some investors complained of "daylight robbery" after Bowers explained that Hibu UK, a subsidiary of hibu Plc, had withdrawn funding to the group, which led to the directors calling in administrators."

13matt13
04/12/2013
17:19
So as I said nothing for shareholders. Nothing for hsg 10, directors in name only.


"Phil Bowers, partner at administrators Deloitte, who chaired the meeting, said he was "happy to engage in dialogue" with the new directors, while insisting they have no executive powers because hibu was put into administration last Wednesday. The subsidiary companies have continued to trade.

Some investors complained of "daylight robbery" after Bowers explained that Hibu UK, a subsidiary of hibu Plc, had withdrawn funding to the group, which led to the directors calling in administrators."

13matt13
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