Afren Share Discussion Threads

[mrwhits1] 12/10/2015 09:35

thanks for the update ldlv

I've emailed alixp to ask when they will be officially announcing the result of the creditors meeting, no reply yet, so positions like my own (short) can be closed etc.

I can't see any value for shareholders in any sale of the assets, as you mentioned above, debt is $1.7B, way above what they are going to get for any assets sold.

If anyone has any more info then please post it here, with links if web based etc.

regards

mrwhits.

[ldlv] 11/10/2015 15:27

hxxp://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/Industry/article1617890.ece

Alixp: Is this the best you can do? Are you sure?

On Friday, creditors approved Alix Partners’ plan to dismantle Afren and sell its assets. PJT Partners, which is running the auction, has already sold the Okoro offshore field for $31m to Amni International, one of Afren’s former operating partners. Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum, another Nigerian producer, is set to pay $35m for the OML 113 reservoir.

Everything else is for sale. Bonhams will hold an auction on October 28 for the company’s collection of African art. Restructuring specialist Hilco has been hired to sell the furniture. Industry sources said the assets were not likely to raise more than $200m in total, meaning that creditors face taking a huge loss on the $1.7bn in outstanding debt.

[mrwhits1] 07/10/2015 12:26

is anyone going to the creditors meeting on Friday?

if so would you mind doing a brief write-up/bullet points taken from the meeting and posting them here?

mrwhits.

[mrwhits1] 07/10/2015 08:27

@Ldlv, its a "creditors" meeting, of which shareholders are a creditor, well down the food chain....

hxxps://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/2405623/

hopefully the companies future will be decided and we can all move on ...

regards

[ldlv] 06/10/2015 22:21

Afren Shareholders meeting
Queen Elizabeth Il Conference Centre, Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, London, SWIP 3EE on 9 October 2015 at 11.00am

[ldlv] 30/9/2015 21:27

This is an e-mail from one ALAG member to Alixparners today that is worth to share:
"I would be interested in attending any relevant update meetings, please keep me informed as appropriate. I also note the six week administrators summary report and was pretty shocked with the overhead structure associated with this case and in particular salaries and costs per hour charged, let alone hours charged for tasks that were clearly part of original functional roles within the organisation that Directors were being paid large salaries to supposedly perform, alla Linn. There is no need for you to respond to me on my total dismay on your report content. I get the material greed, power drive and selfishness that motivates and structures people's behaviour to the detriment of many 1000s of ordinary people's savings, pensions, children's inheritance etc..."

[ldlv] 30/9/2015 14:32

OPL 310 OGO

hxxp://www.oilcapital.com/companies/news/111306/lekoil-eyes-buys-after-starting-oil-production-in-niger-delta-111306.html

Lekoil said the exploration well and sidetrack subsequent to the farm-in made Ogo, as described by a leading oil and gas research consultancy, one of the most significant exploration finds in Africa in recent times.

[ldlv] 30/9/2015 14:13

In view of the level of interest, the Administrators are, however, considering calling a meeting to provide further information to shareholders. If this would be of interest to you please confirm your intention to attend by email to [e-mail] by no later than Friday 2 October 2015.

Its is important that the meeting will be organized before the 9th of October 2015 Please request it

[mrwhits1] 28/9/2015 14:48

it will all probably end when someone gets a 75% vote for whichever package is put forward.

if that is 1p in the £ with 75%+ votes then the most senior debt holders get 1%...

regards

[hpcg] 28/9/2015 14:39

mrwhits1 - yes, I would think that the administrators will be very definitely able to say equity is worthless. I am though intrigued (but not financially impacted at all) as to how big the haircut for debt will be. As time passes the assets are getting less and less valuable so the push from creditors will be for a swift ending.

[mrwhits1] 28/9/2015 14:08

creditors meeting called for the 9th October.

I hope that when the voting is over the administrators sell the assets to someone, and then pay the bondholders(senior) what ever is collected, leaving those still paying a borrowing cost for the common equity an exit point, as a determination will have been made!

roll on the 9th...

[ldlv] 26/9/2015 15:14

chickengeorge what a disgrace you are.

[neothehacker] 26/9/2015 13:54

What's the chances of getting my money back? Slim?

[chickengeorge] 26/9/2015 08:22

I think we should mention the two people who have done more to drag innocent bystanders into losing their money than anybody else.

Step forward prmoldoaks and ldlv. Ldlv was peddling every one of prmoldoaks lies across every one of the Afren bulletin boards. At least prmoldoaks has the good grace to leave the scene of the crime. But the shameless, thick skinned, half witted ldlv hangs around like a toxic smell and claims to represent the very people that he has robbed.

[ldlv] 26/9/2015 07:44

Despite the huge fees Alixp is charging to the Company, Alixp based their devastating conclusions on the "Company previous unsuccessful attempts to re-structure"!Did they(Alixpartners) actually attempt to do anything? Maybe they could explain what did they actually do a part or writing the report.Again the report is in line with our huge reservations, What a surprise!As they stated clearly several times, it was the management and overheads that were the real issues in the company, but at the same time they fully trust the useless efforts made by the previous management to re-finance!? what!? Does it make sense?Did they explore the offers that were ignored by the previous management?Alixp are still banging on about the debt needing paying in full to save the company? We are watching and we are many and soon questions will be asked at a very high level.

[ldlv] 26/9/2015 07:43

If Afren is liquidated, as appears to be happening now, thousands of shareholders including among others pensioners, employees, and contractors, will receive nothing, having been the victims of corporate mis-management, misinformation, over-zealous and greedy creditors, and an unimaginative and ineffectual administratorAlix are still banging on about the debt needing paying in full to save the company. What a bona fide WILL do?

[ldlv] 26/9/2015 07:41

The first objective of any administration is to rescue the company (as opposed to the business that the company carries on) so that it can continue trading as a going concern (paragraph 3(1)(a), Schedule B1, Insolvency Act 1986 (IA 1986)).

[ldlv] 26/9/2015 07:41

The issues at stake here are too weighty for shareholders to accept giving the benefit of the doubt to the Chinese walls defence. This is a question of hundreds of people's investments, savings, and pensions, so the administrators need to be truly independent, and the process thoroughly transparent.

[hpcg] 23/9/2015 23:05

ldv I know I'm relying on 3000 year old logic / maths but taking the 200m out of "Afren did not manage to avoid default, and the lenders will now only retrieve money from Afren if the bondholders recover their full $200m, which most observers think unlikely." yields identical results to lenders.

In other words X + 200 - 200 = Y is an identity of X = Y
If Y is less than 0 in the first case it is also less than 0 in the second case.

[dangersimpson2] 23/9/2015 22:30

It does look like shareholders are throwing good money after bad with the legal action. If there are doubts over the super-senior being paid it looks like the assets are simply not worth what they thought. Even if they prove some kind of fraud who do they hope to recover funds from? It seems more like a desire to find someone to blame than a considered course of action with a positive expected return.

[ldlv] 23/9/2015 21:16

Creditors and shareholders were astonished then that a business which had seemed robust enough to attract $200m of fresh funding from a group of bondholders in April was so soon unable to continue. Afren's key problem was that output from its working oil fields appeared likely to be much lower than previously predicted.Now, some stakeholders are raising another grievance to add to their long list of concerns about Afren.The business advisory firm that took control of Afren as administrator on July 31 was AlixPartners.On August 11, Alix announced that it had hired Blackstone as financial adviser and made Blackstone the point of contact for "any parties interested in participating in potential asset sales" arising from the administration of Afren.Blackstone had been one of the key players in the attempted restructuring of Afren's debts, as adviser to the group of Afren bondholders that injected new money to keep it afloat.Among Afren's shareholders, voices quickly rose to denounce the appointment, arguing that Blackstone's closeness to one group of creditors could create a conflict of interest. The administrator and its advisers, they argued, had to be seen as impartial among stakeholders. Frustration with restructuringOthers, among Afren's employees and bank lenders, share the concern of some shareholders about the appointment, GlobalCapital has learned.AlixPartners and Blackstone declined to comment for this article.Acting for the bondholders, Blackstone was one of the main proponents of the debt restructuring from its outset until it collapsed at the end of July, when Afren said the production forecasts on which the deal was founded had been wrong.During those months of negotiations, Blackstone became the object of sharp criticism from some employees, shareholders and lenders of Afren.They complained that Blackstone, and in particular its head of European restructuring Martin Gudgeon, had pushed hard for a deal that turned out to be unworkable. Other proponents of the restructuring were also attacked.How, shareholders asked after its appointment, could Blackstone now be seen as an impartial adviser to Alix, and act as the first port of call for potential buyers, when it had for months advised and been identified with only one of the many groups involved in Afren's often tense and partisan restructuring? Banks unhappySome of the international banks that had lent to Afren with security over Afren's Ebok oil field, known as the Ebok lenders, also feel the appointment risks a conflict of interest, according to a person close to the group."The Ebok lenders have made that point to Alix," the person said on Friday. "It was a foolish thing for Alix to do."Asked about the possibility of a conflict of interest, a person close to the matter told GlobalCapital on August 12 that it was "fair" to ask questions about this, and that Chinese walls had been put in place to deal with Blackstone's role.But stakeholders in the business expressed surprise at that explanation, pointing to the fact that Gudgeon himself was named as a contact for Blackstone in AlixPartners' August 11 announcement that Blackstone was to be an adviser. How could there be Chinese walls, they asked, if the same person who had worked for the bondholders was now working for the administrators?Earlier this month, an Afren employee who had worked on the restructuring efforts questioned the choice of Blackstone as adviser: "It makes sense, practically, because Blackstone knows Afren well, and because much of the money that can be extracted from the company will go to the ad hoc committee [the committee of bondholders that injected new money into Afren]. But administrators are supposed to fairly work in the interest of all stakeholders."Can there be a Chinese wall between Martin and Martin?" the employee asked. Doubt over Chinese wallsThe source close to the Ebok lenders echoed that point, saying Chinese walls would only work if Alix could give assurances that, from the time of its appointment, Blackstone personnel could no longer work for, or even talk to, the bondholders - and such assurances had not been given.As things stood, the source said: "From a perception perspective, it doesn't look very good. It gives the perception of a conflict of interest."A number of Ebok lenders are bitter about the restructuring. It was never completed, because Afren went into administration before it could be, but the first stage of the restructuring - the injection of $200m of super-senior interim funding from the bondholders - did indeed take place.The bank lenders accepted to rank junior to the bondholders in order for that new money to be injected and for the company to avoid default. But Afren did not manage to avoid default, and the lenders will now only retrieve money from Afren if the bondholders recover their full $200m, which most observers think unlikely.The source close to the Ebok lenders said: "I suppose Alix hired Blackstone because they had good knowledge of Afren. But if they had such good knowledge of Afren, why did they not know the financial situation of the company?" 'Doing a strong job'The person close to the matter, mentioned above, said: "Blackstone are doing a strong job in what are very trying circumstances."Afren Legal Action, a group of retail shareholders in Afren, wrote in an email to GlobalCapital last month: "The issues at stake here are too weighty for shareholders to accept giving the benefit of the doubt to the Chinese walls defence. This is a question of hundreds of people's investments, savings, and pensions, so the administrators need to be truly independent, and the process thoroughly transparent."GlobalCapital understands that more than 50 bids for Afren assets have so far been evaluated during the administration.

[ldlv] 23/9/2015 21:15

The London-listed company with oil fields in Nigeria went into administration on July 31, just three months after a long drawn out restructuring process was supposed to have put the company on a sustainable footing.

[ldlv] 23/9/2015 21:14

 Stakeholders criticise Blackstone's involvement in Afren administrationConcerns over a potential conflict of interest in the process for winding up Afren, the oil exploration company, have further irked shareholders, creditors and employees of the firm, still reeling from its sudden collapse at the end of July.

[hpcg] 21/9/2015 20:32

mrf - there are a host of reasons inexperienced and not so inexperienced AFR shareholders lost out, but two main ones:

1. A simplistic conversion of production into revenue into profit.
2. A lack of understanding of capital structure.

Same mugs, different continent for Arch Coal in the last month. Even with a partial debt restructure - a simple extend and pretend - Chapter 11 is likely in the new year as cash runs out.

Beyond that the death certificate for these companies was taking on debt predicated on prices which were at cyclical highs. I've worked for a company which went through the same and looking back I can see that fairly early on as prices drop management just loses control and there is nothing they can do about it.

NY Boy - yes GLEN is a potential 0. I have reopened my short - the small (!) placing has made thing worse IMO.