Mercantile Ports & Logis... Share Discussion Threads

[mount teide] 16/4/2024 14:20

R123 - if you had the faintest idea of how to manage a commercial port operation you would be aware that MPL's equity is totally worthless( has been for many years for the reasons I've posted here), and the single asset the company owns as pointed out by w01, is effectively owned by the banks, since they sensibly have a lien over the port asset.

I strongly suspect the Indian banks that extended £50m of loans to MPL will not be able to believe their good fortune, at the news that MPL's 'management' is continuing to pump yet further funds raised from equally clueless Institutional shareholders(who are mostly sitting on massive losses), to further develop the facilities, and thereby raise its value by a few more million.....which I would currently estimate at £20m.

This is still some £10m short of the £30m of loan that has been drawdown and 'spent' by the management before the banks put a stop on any further withdrawals - presumably after, as I suggested, they got an independent valuation of the not even 50% of land reclamation and low quality port infrastructure completed since they commenced work on the scam, err sorry, port project in 2015!

AIMHO/DYOR

[waterloo01] 16/4/2024 13:27

It's the same people, in particular Jay and Ghandi. Just Pavan has changed (although bet he still gets a kick back). This is and will essentially owned by the banks.

[researchcentre123] 16/4/2024 12:36

I think info from 5+ years ago does not reflect the current status. Directors have changed and continued to buy in and NAV per share is an order of magnitude bigger than the share price. I think there could be large upside here

[kumbuka] 20/3/2024 14:43

Looks that way in every way.

[danmart2] 20/3/2024 14:15

This company is a massive fraud

[researchcentre123] 20/3/2024 08:58

I'm looking at it fairly simply - whatever went on before with previous directors, appears to have some value in excess of market cap and new directors have bought in recently - surely they know more than we do. This isn't a huge bet for me but I think it could work out. Next step is see if directors are true to their word and coal shipment drop will turn other way as promised.

[mount teide] 17/3/2024 13:12

Karanja Port was fraudulently sold to its IPO investors and banks as a 200 acre port development project that would be built to handle high value, high revenue generating container, project cargo, road trailer, trade vehicle type cargo.

An impossibility since the access channel from Mumbai Harbour has a draft restriction preventing ships carrying this type of cargo from reaching the port without running aground at least 3 miles from the terminal's jetty!

Karanja can only handle very low volume bulk cargoes like coal arriving in barges and coasters - cargo which attracts ultra low handling revenue per tonne. In the eight months between Jan and August 2023, the port handled 863k tonnes of cargo - equivalent to that which could be loaded into just TWO China-Max dry bulk carriers!

Coal handled through the Port of Mumbai currently generates cargo handling revenue of less than £1 a tonne!

And don't forget, the results of the last two years will have been greatly boosted by having revenue(with little cost) from the civil engineering company that used Karanja Port as an operating base to build a bridge over Mumbai Harbour. That contract is now finished......so, all MPL has left is the pittance they earn from handling ultra low revenue generating bulk cargo's like coal and fertiliser.

This was the hitting out the park 2022 results,
£1.80m - Revenue
£6.30m - LOSS
£43.5m - Debt
£25.0m - Debt Interest and Capital Payable over the next 4 years
£1.00m - Estimated Cash
£1.75m - Market cap

To report an £6.30m loss on just £1.8m of revenue is almost as astounding as 'spending' £44m and only having around £2-3m of physical infrastructure to show for it a year prior to commencement of the land reclamation programme in 2015!

For those that like a laugh - the market will not have long to wait before the MPL 'management' deign to grace it with the results of their collective efforts in 2023.

Sadly for those still holding the stock, MPL's former 'management', both criminals with convictions for industrial scale securities fraud, left behind a bunch of fools to mind the bank's assets.


Worth revisiting some of the breathtaking shenanigans the two shysters who originally brought the project to the London AIM casino got up to with shareholders cash and the bank's loans - a link to help refresh memories:

A little taster:

'Totally implausible cash burn of circa £44m in the year PRIOR to the start of the Land reclamation work - nearly 2 Brinks Matt heists carried out in broad daylight!.

I estimate the cash burn should have been a small fraction of the £44m at circa £3-5m.

Totally implausible cash burn AFTER Land Reclamation started - £58m between June 2016 and June 2017, and an astonishing circa £21m during Q4/2016 when no on-site activity whatsoever was going on.'



When Jeremy Warner Allen was appointed Chairman in 2019, he said "I truly believe in the potential of MPL and have full confidence that we will deliver a profitable and valuable business to all our stake holders. I have no doubt that the future will be exciting for the Company and I look forward to playing my part in growing the business and the platform as a whole."

I have since written to him and asked "what have you been doing for shareholders since joining the Board in 2018?"

As I noted, "in common with your predecessor you do not hold any shipping or ports industry professional qualifications or have any first hand senior management experience of either industry.

Consequently, as shareholders (one share), currently holding the highest professional qualifications the Shipping and Ports industries currently examine for, and with decades of senior management experience running ports and shipping companies, i'd like to offer some advice in your new role.

Suggest you start by appointing a reputable Marine Civil Engineering Consultancy to carry out a cost analysis of the Karanja Port construction work completed to date and then, after pouring yourself a very large brandy, compare the figure with the circa £160m carrying value that is currently in MPL's accounts for this 'asset'.

Once you've finished the bottle and sobered up, request the Marine Civil Engineering Consultants to then conduct a forensic audit (and give a professional opinion) on every payment over £10k made to contractors since 2012 - while they're doing that, we suggest you order yourself a case of vintage brandy for when you read the report.

Never received a reply ..... the rest as they say is history, with IPO investors now 99.8% down and most subsequent placing investors down by very similar amounts for what is a straightforward low spec real estate development.

The clueless II's who collectively gave the shysters £150m over the last decade for 'equity' should be arrested for impersonating fund management professionals.

[kumbuka] 17/3/2024 11:17

If you couldn’t see this was fraud from the beginning it only adds to showing how incompetent you are.

[kumbuka] 17/3/2024 11:15

Your opinions are worthless bully boy pj.

[pj 1] 17/3/2024 08:53

Most frauds try to go 'ligit' towards the end in an attempt to deflect was has happened historically and hide the trail so to speak, so there is always a chance gullible investors can be suckered in. Add on the P&D risk, which cleary researchcentre123 above is a part of, and its easy to see what may happen......Similar is currently happening at MIN in my opinion, but the Bulls there just dont see it, or more accurately dont want to see it because it means admitting they got it wrong.

There are also frauds where financially gain, once part completed , does not become the main focus. That changes to the fact they are simple suckering people in and it becomes a power game.

As is happening in CTAG currently, in my opinion.

[danmart2] 15/3/2024 13:28

Your in for a long wait

This is a massive fraud , do some research

[researchcentre123] 15/3/2024 13:22

Bit quiet here! I'm just waiting for for an update when hopefully the coal contracts increase

[mount teide] 24/1/2024 14:39

R123 - with the greatest respect, I would strongly urge you to carry out some high quality research on MPL and the wider ports and shipping sectors.

If you did, you'd quickly establish that MPL's equity is worthless!

[researchcentre123] 17/1/2024 09:49

When you look at it you have a new bunch of directors who've taken over and are putting their own money into the business. There have been 2 lots of director buy-ins at this deflated price. That would suggest that they believe that the dip in revenue is temporary and they will succeed in their refinance. If you add in that one director has in recent times put some millions of his own money in this business, and there are loans secured on the buildings suggesting that banks agree with the valuations. That puts assets per share at 15.9 times what it's currently trading for or 25.44 pence per share. This is essentially a start up, just starting to get revenue coming in. Of course it's not all easy, but I take some comfort in the fact that directors themselves have the same interests as shareholders.

[realdealy] 10/1/2024 16:15

Liberalism great isn't it.


Maybe Putin would stop the complete fraud of mpl. Great Britannia won't

.bring plenty of lube.

[tomboyb] 10/1/2024 12:40

This consolidated at 0.2-0.3p -

It would not surprise me if this eventually ended up there again -

[tomboyb] 10/1/2024 10:43

Interesting when the whole investor community knew not to give MPL money but was supported regardless -

Makes you wonder W I M M H -

[igoe104] 10/1/2024 08:41

Any fund thats invested in this should be black listed for not doing its due diligence properly.

Its now down 99.99% down from its listing...

[mount teide] 10/1/2024 08:36

Another totally disastrous year of non performance and another certain massive loss - to now try and blame it on one month's poor throughput performance of an ultra low revenue generating cargo like bulk coal is laughable!

Now the revenue from the short term TATA contract - where they rented a large area of the terminal hardstanding and guaranteed access to a section of the jetty ( effectively allowing the contractor to operate as an independent port operator inside MPL's port) - has now stopped, all that is left is a few ultra low revenue and margin dry bulk cargoes like coal that most other small terminals will not handle, because they cannot afford to!

[researchcentre123] 23/11/2023 16:44

A little odd - as shares sold prices go up. Maybe there's a big order?

[researchcentre123] 27/10/2023 08:52

Seems to me that if directors are buying with their own cash, which they are, then there is very likely to be a big upside here

[pj 1] 17/9/2023 19:55

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