Mercantile Ports & Logis... Share Discussion Threads

[marvelman] 20/7/2017 16:33

Yes indeed MT...I would like to thank you once again for your huge contribution both to this thread and its followers and also on a personal level for reminding me that I am not the most intelligent person in the world after all:-))

[mount teide] 20/7/2017 15:55

marvelman - Arden's Note has probably drawn in a few small foolish II's who, like the current II's that are sitting on massive paper losses, have almost certainly failed to carry out any meaningful DD worthy of the name.

There is no dream here - this is Bollywood's latest blockbuster - 'Nightmare on Karanja Creek' slowly unfolding before shareholders disbelieving eyes.

[mount teide] 20/7/2017 15:47

We will also make another prediction, that shareholders will not see any further land reclamation than has currently been carried out at Karanja. Forget the 200 acres its not going to happen - you read it here! The clue is in the Prelims for those who know how to read between the lines!

Once a token operation commences sometime next year, Management will change tack and attempt to retain as much cash as possible, for as long as possible, to keep their gravy train running at shareholders expense until the last possible moment.

By Feb 2019 some £18m of loan interest and capital repayments will have fallen due, and £30m in total by the end of 2019 - more than enough to turn the lights out for good.


AIOHO/DYOR

[marvelman] 20/7/2017 15:31

Utterly unbelievable the folly of some to dismiss what is real in order to buy a dream

[igoe104] 20/7/2017 14:35

just looks like someone thrown 2k down the drain, just now.

[igoe104] 20/7/2017 13:46

Mount Teide, how do you see this story ending ?

Running out of money, and being purchased on the cheap ?

[mount teide] 20/7/2017 13:22

Arden Partners Note - Dec 2013

'SKIL has designed its Karanja terminal to be built on 200 acres of reclaimed estuary land and to consist of 1,000m of quay.'

Clearly, as reference Arden must have used the excellent Royal Haskoning Design Plan for Karanja Port when making that comment in their Analysts Note.

Of course they did - because Arden Partners were given it by the MPL management to include in their Dec 2013 Note(written some 9 months after ITD Cementation were appointed as the main contractor), along with Royal Haskoning's Overall General Arrangement Plan(the key document of the Construction Tender Contract).

This is most interesting, because it confirms that ITD will have based their £57m fixed price tender offer for the marine civil engineering construction work, on the basis of a 200 acre port and 1,000m fixed quay, as per the Royal Haskoning General Arrangement plan - a document kindly provided by the MPL Management for the Ardens's Note, and on which is clearly stamped in BOLD TYPE "FOR TENDER', suggesting it was almost certainly a copy of the Final Draft that would have been used in the Contract Tender Process some 12 months earlier!


After re-reading the Arden Partners Dec 2013 Analysts Note, it clearly raises a number of serious questions for Arden to answer:

Including but not restricted to:

Why was the port specification materially changed following ITD's appointment but not made known to Investors some 9 months later in Arden's Note: to a much lower cost, considerably smaller, open, lightweight 360m piled jetty, which has a materially higher operating cost and hugely restricted use during the 4 to 6 month monsoon season, since it has no weather protection?

Port Construction - What due diligence did Arden Partners carry out to confirm the comment in the Note that 'construction is now underway'? Because, there was NO on-site construction underway when the Note was written, as the reclamation site was inaccessible by road for aggregate vehicles due to a 50m wide fast flowing tidal creek, and would remain so for over a year until Dec 2014; just 9 months before the expected start up date of cargo operations at Karanja, according to Arden's impeccably researched Note!

Was Arden expecting that £44m of shareholders funds would be 'spent' before a single aggregate vehicle arrived on site at Karanja, to start the land reclamation - because we cannot find any Note comment referring to it? If so, perhaps Arden could inform investors where they believe the money has been 'spent'!

Likewise were Arden expecting that management would have 'spent' £94m to date to reclaim circa 90 acres of mostly foreshore and lay 160 lightweight shallow water piles? Because, we can find no evidence of it in their Notes. If so, perhaps Arden could inform investors where they believe the money has been 'spent'!

Do you think that any II investing on the basis of the contents of your Dec 2013 Note, would consider themselves to have been misled?

Also, with the benefit of hindsight, like some shareholders, would Arden Partners consider the content of the 31 October 2016 Shareholders Circular to raise another £37m, which Arden Partners were deeply involved in, and for which they took their near £200k payment in full by way of MPL 10p shares(oh dear!), as Fraud by False Representation, and for which an official complaint has been submitted by shareholders to the AIM Regulator, the SFO and Nomad ?


AIOHO/DYOR

[mount teide] 19/7/2017 09:26

Shareholders IN DENIAL should repeatedly ask themselves one simple question until the penny finally drops:

Why would the Company CHANGE EVERYTHING, to design and build a Terminal to the 'Directors preferred specification', rather than the original, high value Royal Haskoning 'all weather fixed quay wall design'?


If you asked any experienced Port Operator for the most logical and commercial design specification for a bulk and general cargo Terminal at Karanja - i would suggest the only answer you will get, would be a terminal very similar to the Royal Haskoning design on the front page of the Mercantile Website!

When the only PLAUSIBLE answer to the simple question above finally dawns, you will have worked out what is going on here - for someone with Industry experience its a clear as a bell - its why NO PORT OPERATOR WOULD BE INTERESTED IN TAKING OVER THE COMPANY AT ANY PRICE OR, WAS WILLING TO FUND THE ADDITIONAL £37M OF CASH REQUIRED TO KEEP THE LIGHTS ON(ASSUMING ANY WERE EVER ASKED - WHICH WE VERY MUCH DOUBT!).

No investment advice offered, inferred or intended.

AIOHO/DYOR

[joshondale] 19/7/2017 05:22

Chart looks good !! Lol

[pbleeds] 19/7/2017 00:14

Where is this Karanja port being built ?

I don't see it here...
hxxps://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Uran,+Navi+Mumbai,+Maharashtra,+India/@18.8431999,72.9475403,5182m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x3be7da47634ac5bf:0x51f27845111437ea!8m2!3d18.8772346!4d72.9283391

and the image on their new website suggests it's going to be quite big.

What am I missing ?

[mount teide] 18/7/2017 13:49

Some clouds can have a silver lining!

A big thanks to MPL management !

Last year after MPL became completely un-investible, we elected to crystallise high 5 figure losses here, and re-invest the proceeds into TAPTICA(TAP): fortuitously, by March 2017 we had made back our losses and since, have seen our investment nearly double.

In MPL our original investments would now be circa 94% down - so thanks MPL, you helped us make the decision to exit and re-ivest in a company with excellent management, where our 'MPL' investment is now worth over 100p and rising fast, rather than just 3.25p!

Proving that L&G can get it right as well as horribly wrong; L&G have been invested in TAP before us and almost certainly have made more money in TAP than their very considerable 8 figure MPL paper losses to date.


AIOHO/DYOR

[mount teide] 18/7/2017 12:07

Hi Waterloo - nothing whatsoever!

In the alleged Everonn money siphoning scam which apparently saw tens of £millions fraudulently transferred into Companies run by Gandhi and his family, Sunny's team bypassed the regulator and went directly to the Special Fraud Office.

After giving AIM Regulation and the NOMAD the common courtesy of referring our complaint first to them, we have taken Sunny's lead and yesterday escalated it, by referring it directly to the UK Special Fraud Office.

As we know from the £25k a month travelling expanses and hotel bills shareholders have been scandalously financing for the last 7 years, some of the Mercantile executive team are not only based but have considerable assets in the UK, and so are well within the reach of the long arm of the law, should it need to take its course.


AIOHO/DYOR

[phowdo] 18/7/2017 11:51

If its such a bargain you do wonder why the actual partners at Arden aren't filling their boots...

Of course the reality is they, like everyone else in the city, know its another foreign AIM PoS that they earn fees from until the money runs out.

[pj 1] 18/7/2017 11:34

That looks like a 'research note' written to allow certain investors an escape route to exit on any spike up imo. I wonder how much Nikhitall Gandhi has paid them to produce it?

''minor slippages''-its a disgrace.

[waterloo01] 18/7/2017 11:31

If you are in a hole, stop digging, or as Arden would suggest, 'dig deeper'.

MT have you had any response from your excellent letters to regulators?

[mount teide] 17/7/2017 10:08

Papy02 - thanks, yes a typo - as you say it should have been October 2016!

Will edit accordingly.

[papy02] 17/7/2017 10:00

3rd para from last. Oct 2017 s/b 2016?

[orinocor] 17/7/2017 09:45

An astonishing and brilliant summary. I especially like the use of the word "smorgasbord".

[mount teide] 13/7/2017 14:51

That's a no brainer - the one who has NO criminal record and an International property portfolio to shame most billionaires.

And who shamelessly charters a Boeing 767 once a month to visit Singapore at taxpayers expense for which she takes $4m spending money in cash courtesy of the Zimbabwean Treasury, along with over the last few years, an estimated US$750m of uncut diamonds stolen from the Nation's Marange mines.

The one who owns numerous large Gold Mines, private schools and game reserves. Has seized dozens of luxury bank properties and owns at least five 50 bed mansions in Zimbabwe and South Africa and over 20 Zimbabwean farms with a combined acreage greater than Wales, but second in size to Zimbabwe's largest land owner and her financial and investment property 'advisor' - a notorious British criminal and ex shipping industry careerist who had his UK murder conviction quashed on appeal, and who is still the largest 'slum' landlord in the UK, for which he has criminal convictions, including one for throwing a live grenade into the living room of a tenant who had temporarily fallen behind with his rent, and had failed to respond positively to a brutal beating from the landlord's thugs by electing to pack his bags and leave.

A man like Gandhi who also left school without any qualifications, to commence a career as an Able Seaman on British tankers. And who in the early seventies bought a large area of prime publicly owned beachfront land from corrupt public officials in Jamaica for a few £thousand pounds, which he financed from his very modest seaman's salary, and which by the time of his 21st birthday, was the subject of interest from a major US hotel group who wanted to open up Jamaica as a travel destination. The young seaman told them to make him an offer he could't refuse - they did £5m - the rest as they say is history.

[azalea] 13/7/2017 12:45

Who has made the most money from their 'career' choices, N. Ghandhi or Grace Mugabe?