Craven House Capital Share Discussion Threads

[still waiting] 28/11/2014 10:05

using ebola to try and cover over a bad investment decision is terrible imho.

[chumpster10126] 28/11/2014 10:01

The results were as expected. Excellent increase in NAV. A few deals which haven't gone as expected for non-business related issues, ie Ebola. But, give it a couple more weeks, as I'm sure the company has something up its sleeve!

[the stigologist] 28/11/2014 09:23

pmsl


Chumpster10126
27 Nov'14 - 14:06 - 728 of 730 0 0

HD. Going on comments posted over on LSE, I'm guessing that may be a 'yes'. There appears to be a lot of investors expecting big results tomorrow from CRV. Interestingly, they also mention a couple of 'big deals' that have been completed which may or may not be announced tomorrow. Fingers crossed, CRV will not disappoint it's dwindling private investors!

[h d shoring] 28/11/2014 09:11

As predicted by Chumpster a bit of a non entity the results
back in the bottom drawer for 2 more years .

[the stigologist] 28/11/2014 08:39

Cash - ZERO !

Still Technically Insolvent

[the stigologist] 28/11/2014 08:37

get ready for a shafting

The Company may also seek to execute an additional capital raise when market conditions are suitable for such fundraising activity.

[the stigologist] 28/11/2014 08:36

so they've been listed a few years trumpeted this 'false' value of 1.25p to retail mug punters

dear oh dear

[the stigologist] 28/11/2014 08:35

astonishing admission


We also realise we are issuing new shares to distressed sellers. These individuals and companies more often than not will be forced sellers of Craven House shares. When we conduct the transaction the vendors almost always indicate they are not planning to sell shares immediately. We explain that if they do decide to sell shares it will depress the share price. Yet because they are often distressed and due to external pressures they may be facing, they can rapidly become aggressive sellers of Craven House shares. We accept and expect this outcome despite assurances to the contrary. Distressed sellers often must sell despite their best intentions. This, in turn, depresses the share price.

No amount of self-promotion will change this situation.

[h d shoring] 27/11/2014 14:34

Price paid creeping up .46 to .474p
Its make your mind up time in /or out for a possible ride north.

[chumpster10126] 27/11/2014 14:06

HD. Going on comments posted over on LSE, I'm guessing that may be a 'yes'. There appears to be a lot of investors expecting big results tomorrow from CRV. Interestingly, they also mention a couple of 'big deals' that have been completed which may or may not be announced tomorrow. Fingers crossed, CRV will not disappoint it's dwindling private investors!

[h d shoring] 27/11/2014 13:48

Is that 400k the start of pre results buying ?
keep a watch folks .

[chumpster10126] 25/11/2014 09:49

From LSEThe problem is often with the results is that they don't seem to create much of a stir, even though the NAV keeps increasing. Without some real figures on their investments (which they have said will be announced in these results) and clarity on them, PIs are unsure as to exactly what they are investing in. Those that have been a fair while have done their research and know at some point there will be a very large deal/one of the current investments comes good on a large scale. However, for those looking in, where would you start?! Probably this board, which doesn't bode well for the companies communication and website. Once we know more about their investments including realising value and direction, then the share price will start to move rapidly north.

[chumpster10126] 25/11/2014 09:48

From LSEResults out this week, they could come literally anytime from the next 5 minutes to 16.15 on Friday.Response in the market via trades has been decidedly lukewarm so far..Karinas post emphasises the smoke and mirrors which surround CRV. Once the results do come out, a lot of that smoke should clear.Mr Pajak always gives a very bullish forecast for the coming months, this needs to be backed up with deals as opposed to "talks".

[chumpster10126] 25/11/2014 09:12

From LSEThere was some speculation that Royalty Sports had changed its name to Dark Horse Brands. There is no change in company name, Dark Horse Brands is an entirely new company that has been awarded the distribution rights for Trek & Bontrager after they decided not to renew their contract with Royalty Sports. Some staff that were working with the Trek Brand before have moved across to Dark Horse to try and maintain some continuity.

[karina] 20/11/2014 12:40

Only 750k available online despite the rise, looks very positive.

Results out in the next 6 and a half working days.......

History shows they like to release a bit of news in the run up, lets hope that's repeated this year. There is certainly a lot they should have put out before now.......

[karina] 20/11/2014 12:36

Maybe H D, lets see

LSE more lively than here

Jackal5
Posts: 2,663
Off Topic
Opinion: No Opinion
Price: 0.47
I'mToday 12:27actually amazed how quickly this has moved to 0.50 to buy. Do the MMs know something we don't... Admittedly there are not many shares in the open market so this does move fast, but am a little surprised at the movement this morning, something afoot one feels. Long may it continue!

[h d shoring] 20/11/2014 11:53

Shall I grab my coat and bins ?? are we off to the races ??

[karina] 19/11/2014 20:42

TullyCrow 430 postsRE: Wealth ManagerWe are indebted once again to Wealth Manager for his research and thoughts. It is just a pity that nobody apart from the very few of us here actually read it. If the masses were to take 30 minutes to do just a little research, they would surely form the view that this is not only one of the most undervalued companies on AIM, but also represents a REAL chance of ending up multiples of its present MC. Putting two and two together can at times equal five, but all the signs are suggesting that Wealth Manager is not far away with his speculation. Some serious players are involved here, and I suggest they know a lot more than we do. Myself and assorted friends are still getting nowhere in trying to get answers to questions that I have posted previously. That can be looked at in two ways. They have something going on which will become clear in due course, or they are ignorant, pig ignorance could best describe the Nomad, I do wonder what they do.. FWIW I favour the former. Limits improved significantly late in the day, market makers willing to take big volume well over the bid ( 0.41) and sell just 500k. Results due before end of month, last two have come out the 26th and 29th of the month, so not long to wait for some news at last.. I am looking forward to seeing what they have to say about South American and South African interests in particular. It may transpire that "our turn" isn't far away, some of us have showed remarkable patience with CRV and all the smoke and mirrors that surround it, we should be in a much clearer situation by the end of the month. Good luck to us all.

[karina] 19/11/2014 14:43

Now, hold that thought and let’s move to the next 3 pieces:

“In 1993, Susan joined Goldman Sachs International as an Executive Director and Head of Sales and Trading responsible for developing its emerging markets debt business in Europe.”

“Financial News named Susan as one of the Top 100 ‘Women in Finance in Europe’ in both 2007 and 2008. She was awarded one of eight Shell UK Women of the Future Awards 2006 and was short-listed by the CBI as the UK’s First Woman of Finance, 2005.”

“She holds three Honours degrees, including two in law from Oxford University and McGill University, Montreal, respectively. She also studied at St. Andrews University, Scotland, University of Perugia, Italy and University of Tel Aviv, Israel.”

So, are you visualising the speculative dimension? Are you visualising Craven House Capital’s new CEO? Executive Director? An experienced head in emerging markets with an exemplary track record... The City would absolutely love it. Can you see it? Three members of the BOD all hailing from Oxford University? It’s worth a speculation, don’t you think? After all, Mark is only an ‘acting’ chairman. Well, this is my wild card. It is purely speculative and I could possibly be barking up the wrong tree.

Besides that, however, Payne and Pajak, both investment bankers by profession, are likely to favour consolidation.

Remember Craig, to be incredibly successful in this market, one must have the ability to see what everyone else has seen and think what no one else has thought and stick to it. I am sure the investors who loaded-up in Fitbug 14 months ago, when it was wallowing in the doldrums at 0.38p, will concur.

[karina] 19/11/2014 14:42

To this end, Emvest Food Products (Mauritius) Ltd currently has one, fully-owned operating subsidiary, EmVest Eastern Cape Ltd, and 3 part-owned subsidiaries (Craven’s Emvest assets). This structure is not ideal for sweating (maximising profits) the cash-generative assets and a consolidation is likely in the medium term.

To do this, Mark will need to realise substantial synergies (of all the agricultural assets in the Barvale region) from being integrated with one another. The realisation will, at some point, involve a consolidation of some sort with all the 3 (Craven House, Desmond Investments Ltd, and EFPM Ltd) actors. And when this happens, expect a valuation in excess of £55m.

Hold on though, there’s more…

Incorporated under the laws of Mauritius, Emvest Food Products (Mauritius) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pro Alia Investment 1 (Mauritius) Limited. Pro Alia, in turn, is indirectly owned by a Luxembourg-registered closed end investment fundcalled Emergent Pro Alia Fund. This fund is managed by… wait for it… Susan Payne. It is wholly focussed on the acquisition and development of substantial land projects in emerging markets.

hxxp://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/Emergent%20Pro%20Alia%20Fund-ALF%20II-Offering%20Memorandum%20(Revised%20Feb%202011).pdf

Now, when viewed at face value, Susan Margaret Law Payne’s 3.6% stake in the company and her link with Emvest appears somewhat straight forward; an investment in a company that has a notable stake in her business. However, digging deeper, and connecting the excerpts (below) from her biography with Craven’s mission statement, then one visualises another dimension:

“Susan joined JP Morgan in 1986, working on the equities, fixed income and syndicate desks before joining the original eight-person global Emerging Markets Group. During her tenure as Head of Emerging Markets Sales, Europe, the global group grew to number over 250 people and became established as the market leader in emerging markets securities, including both debt and equities for several years in a row.”

hxxps://www.ellevatenetwork.com/events/1083 (Below the sub-title biographies)

Right, let’s pause for a moment and re-read a key line in that piece. “During her tenure as Head of Emerging Markets Sales, Europe, the global group grew to number over 250 people and became established as the market leader in emerging markets securities.”

[karina] 19/11/2014 14:40

LSE

Thinking the unthinkable... (Pt 1)Today 14:27Craig, to be incredibly successful in this market, one must have the ability to see what everyone else has seen and think what no one else has thought.

Craven House Capital currently offers investors exposure to its rapidly-expanding portfolio of emerging market opportunities together with its infrastructure and methodology of building value in those businesses. Pressfit, in my view, represents a small fraction of that. To this end, steer clear from over-analysing its operations and focus instead on the unravelling, potentially explosive (share price wise) story surrounding its six lucrative assets.

And what’s the story? Well, shut your eyes, visualise what everyone else has seen and think what no one else has thought. There is, however, a warning: you’ll need to temper your excitement with copious amounts of patience…

Desmond Holdings, the company’s investment manager, has, over the last 15 years, managed gross assets of over $500million!



Question: How has it managed to do this? The company must have had a substantial funding structure and a spectacularly well-connected management team in place to produce these sort of results.

Answer: Based on previous research (see my post ‘compelling discovery’…), we know that Mark Joseph Pajak is Desmond Holdings’ front man. We also know that Desmond Holdings’ investment arm is Desmond Investments Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary listed on the Toronto Venture Exchange (OTC platform) that characteristically operates like an investment bank, preferring to employ complex financial instruments to complete transactions. So, with that in mind…

hxxp://www.valuewalk.com/2014/01/man-group-sued-investor-swap-derivatives-transaction-gone-bad/

Now, the key line in the above piece is: ‘GLG said they were not a party to the specific transaction between Desmond Investments Ltd (CVE:DLC.P) and Credit Suisse Group and that Desmond independently decided to invest.’

So, how has the company managed to fund and manage gross assets of over $500million? Richard Desmond, the British billionaire; ranked 25 on the UK Rich list and worth a cool £1.4billion.

hxxp://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/celeb/publishers/richard-desmond-net-worth/

Question: Is there additional evidence that a substantial funding structure and a spectacularly well-connected management team is currently in place?

Answer: hxxp://www.sedar.com/CheckCode.do

Desmond Investments’ proposed acquisition of AP Vos & Seuns (Pty) Limited and its related companies for £40m.The company’s property consists of approximately 1300 hectares located close to Desmond's existing macadamia nut processing factory in the province of Mpumalanga. Behind this transaction is Mark’s ultimate goal of building a sizeable, highly profitable food processing operation in Africa, the world’s next growth frontier.

Question: What does this mean for Craven House?

Answer: The company has the potential to target assets within the £25m – £50m valuation range! And with a current market cap of £3.5m, there’s substantive potential for the share price to multi-bag in the medium term.

Emvest Food Products (Mauritius) Ltd has five operating subsidiaries:

1. EmVest Barvale Ltd: It operates a 1,374 hectare vegetable and cattle farm (the "Barvale Farm"). On-site packing facilities allow for crops to be shipped to local retailers or exported. The farm’s positioning close to the borders of Swaziland, Mozambique and Zimbabwe make it ideally located to service each of these markets.

2. EmVest Nuts Ltd: It operates food-processing facilities located close to the Barvale Farm. It dries, cracks, grades, and packs nuts on site. Its annual capacity has increased to over 1,500 tons per year in recent years.

3. EmVest Evergreen Ltd: It operates a vegetable dehydration business with a capacity of 128 tons per day. It supplies dried vegetables to several companies. It is the company’s intention to ultimately source all of each factory’s inputs from the Barvale Farm, which is expected to enhance profitability.

4. EmVest Eastern Cape Ltd: It is a management company whose services include assisting in management of farming operations of land transferred to new owners under certain government initiatives. It generally operates in a joint venture arrangement whereby the business retains a proportion of profits from the farms under its management.

5. EmVest Foods Ltd: This is a food storage and distribution business located just north of Johannesburg. It stages and distributes fresh produce from the operating subsidiaries mentioned above as well as from third party local farmers, and also encompasses cold storage and ripening facilities.

As you can see, the subsidiaries represent stand-alone businesses in their own right, but demonstrate substantial synergies from being integrated with one another. Here’s the kicker though; Craven House Capital part-owns 3 of the above subsidiaries:

[karina] 14/11/2014 12:52

LSE

Mark Pajak is clearly a well connected, astute and respected business man. Firstly to have cut some of the deals he has for CRV (issuing shares at 1.25p and limited by the companies own size), and secondly for Kalimtgis and David Jones CBE to invest in a small cap AIM share (All in a relatively short space of time). There has to be a reason why these two experience businessmen and investors have put their money up for such a seemingly small AIM company. I imagine one of the reason is Desmond Holdings being CRVs backer, and if Richard Desmond is involved, the billionaire businessman, then that may explain a lot. However, that does not automatically mean CRV will do well. The fact Kalimtgis investment came 5 days after the news was announced that Desmond had a LOI to acquite VOS for $65 million is interesting, although could be a coincidence. The fact that CRVs Emvest investment is in the same region Mpumalanga as VOS speaks volumes to me. I'm hoping this will all become clear soon. I expect the NAV to be a fair bit higher than previous at the least!

[market master] 14/11/2014 09:11

1m buy some sly stake-building going on there. Could be massive re-rate coming up.

[spazzz] 12/11/2014 08:35

Looks like someone's taking advantage of this latest buying opportunity - another million gone through at .43 to match the one late yesterday afternoon.