Mercantile Ports & Logis... Share Discussion Threads

[kramch] 25/9/2017 15:37

MT has posted a lot of helpful data here, some of which I have used to question management on my visit (just a bit less repetition would be more productive).

The new board seem to be taking steps to improve the management.

Interest rates on loans are high, but so is inflation in India, (so we have to remember how we managed the 70's).
K.

[pj 1] 25/9/2017 14:44

MT has also posted his calculations substantiating his claims that even if the Port becomes operational, it will not become economically viable.

Maybe you should prove where those figures are wrong so we can all learn?

[old punter] 25/9/2017 14:29

mount tedious,i like many others respect the efforts you have put into your efforts to destroy this company but you are now boring us to death.
and your research has been excellent.
give it a break.it looks as if the company will survive ,let us recover a small amount in peace.
I hope the directors sue you for libel as they shouldyou could only win if the company goes broke !
you must lead a very dull life as it seems to be your only interest.

[my retirement fund] 25/9/2017 12:36

dave4545 filtered as I dont like truth deniers

[dave4545] 25/9/2017 11:28

kramch

I agree and wether or not MT is right or wrong I'm sick of hearing the same story
over and over again so I filtered him. We get the point MT just have a break mate !

[azalea] 25/9/2017 11:23

3 former Tesco directors are to stand trial accused of fraud and false accounting.

[kramch] 25/9/2017 11:06

I'm all for a healthy dose of skepticism but it can go too far and cloud our judgement (yes, I've lost money on these shares too).
It's positive to see the new directors put some skin in the game (I detect Flight's hand in this?). Having visited the site in the Spring I can vouch that there is a professional team trying to get it operational. Perhaps the new directors will now have an incentive to exert some control on their arrogant CEO!
K.

[mount teide] 25/9/2017 10:41

£66k buy at a 97% discount to the IPO price is:

2.5 months travelling and luxury hotel expenses for the Board, which has totalled £2.3m and counting to date over the last 8 years.

What this shows is the sector business naivety and inexperience of the Board Members involved, because they could buy £6.6m worth of shares and it would not make the slightest difference as to the future prospects of this 'business' - which has zero chance of generating sufficient revenue/cash flow to pay the interest on the bank debt, never mind any of the capital.

Don't forget the original financial projections for the Port were based on 200 acres of port/logistics park capacity and a total build cost of £110m.

Of course, the situation has changed massively for the worse since then. Completely contrary to the Management's and Nomads disingenuous assertions, which have been proved entirely wrong time and time again, as predicted last October what MPL's shareholders will end up with by supporting the £37m emergency cash raise is not anything remotely resembling the contents of AIM's greatest work of fiction - the MPL Shareholders Circular date 31 Oct 2016 - but barely 90-100 acres of hardstanding, no logistics park, a small much scaled down heavily weather and tide affected open jetty, all serviced by a potholed dirt track which previously has been unusable during the monsoon season and a almost comical ultra shallow 3.0m at best vessel 'access' channel(my local yacht marina has more approach channel depth), delivered at a cost some £40m higher.

Run those changes through a Port Financial Model for a terminal designed to handle only slow moving, low value and low handling revenue generating cargo and the results make such a terminal totally uncommercial - even without the debt burden, we estimate the BEST profit result such a port could deliver after reaching 90% of capacity utilisation is around £1m to £1.5m per annum - in line with well run terminals elsewhere with similar specifications and operating costs.

AFAWAA - There is not a single small port anywhere in the world handling the type of cargo the Directors have designed Karanja to handle that burdened with the circa £96m of debt interest and capital repayments now falling due, even if run by a Professional Port Operator, could generate a fraction of the cash flow required to avoid the Banks ending up as the owners.

The market has already given its verdict on the competence of the existing management by humiliatingly crushing the share-price from 250p to 8p, necessitating an emergency bailout to keep the lights on a little longer, using a SINCE PROVEN TOTALLY FRAUDULENT PROSPECTUS(as we predicted it would turn out to be at the time). The strongest possible signals are there for all who want to see where any 'investment' in this management of proven liars and totally inexperienced port operators will end.


AIOHO/DYOR

[my retirement fund] 25/9/2017 10:03

They must be reading MT's posts and getting nervous. If any of them ended up in court, they are going to jump up and down shouting from the roof tops to the judge that they bought shares and their council will be using an loud hailer to ask the prosecution why they would have bought shares if it was a scam etc.

£10K which is neither here nor there will probably prove money very well spent as insurance for such a scenario imo

[someuwin] 25/9/2017 09:01

Directors buy £66k of stock.

[mount teide] 24/9/2017 21:21

So, according to the proven liar and white collar criminal masquerading as the Executive Chairman of Mercantile Ports, the Karanja asset now has the totally unbelievable carrying value of £116m - it currently comprises:

90 acres of Reclaimed Land(mostly foreshore) under development
300m of jetty piling under development


Lets be very generous and make the following assumptions:

Est cost to develop the jetty to date: £10m
Est cost to build approach road bridge over tidal creek: £3m
Est cost to secure various planning and environmental consents: £2m
Est cost to carry out site surveys and design terminal: £1m
Est cost of dredging off the berth to date: £3m
Workforce Remobilisation Costs: £2m

Est Total for this work to date: £22m

Now, by implication, this suggests the land reclamation work to date has cost:
£116m - £22m = £94m( £1m an acre!) - complete nonsense!


The major outstanding items/work to make the terminal partially operational is:

Complete the piling and construction of the jetty, lay storage park surfacing and internal roadways, installation of services, lighting, security fencing, entry/exit gate control systems, build warehousing, purchase port handling equipment(cranes/lift trucks/ terminal tractors and trailers), build an engineering workshop and office accommodation for port staff and stevedores.


By the company's own admission they will have reclaimed JUST 90 to 100 acres of land by early 2018, and of that barely 50 acres will be available for operational use.

They had just £19m of cash left and £21m of headroom in the bank loan BY June 2017.

WHERE DO THEY PROPOSE TO FIND THE CASH TO CARRY OUT ALL OF THE WORK ABOVE, NEVER MIND RECLAIM THE OTHER 100 ACRES OF LAND AND BUILD A LOGISTICS PARK? ANSWERS ON A POSTCARD TO THE UK AIM REGULATOR, SFO AND MUMBAI FRAUD SQUAD!

IT IS OF COURSE COMPLETE AND UTTER NONSENSE! TIP: ANYONE WHO SUPPORTED THE £37M PLACING AND OPEN OFFER SHOULD RE-READ THE ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION TOGETHER WITH THE IPO ADMISSION DOCUMENT BECAUSE AS WE PREDICTED LAST NOVEMBER:

What shareholders will see at best is GOING TO BE:

90 - 100 ACRES OF RECLAIMED LAND/HARDSTANDING

350m LIGHTWEIGHT OPEN JETTY - severely weather and tide affected

APPROACH CHANNEL DEPTH 3.0M TO 3.5M

MAIN ACCESS ROAD - A HEAVILY POTHOLED, UNLIT, SINGLE LANE GRAVEL TRACK - PREVIOUSLY UNUSABLE DURING THE MONSOON SEASON FOR HEAVY COMMERCIAL VEHICLES.

Highly successful Adani Ports built their new container terminal comprising of a 800m fixed quay, capable of handling ships 50 times the deadweight capacity of the largest vessels Karanja can handle, and an 80 acre fully automated container storage park for the SAME TOTAL COST - circa £150m

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE OF TWO EXPLANATIONS FOR THE ABOVE STATE OF AFFAIRS:

EITHER FRAUD/THEFT on an INDUSTRIAL SCALE IS BEING PERPETRATED BY MPL MANAGEMENT (EST: 2-4 BRINKS MATT JOBS)

OR

PROJECT MISMANAGEMENT AND INCOMPETENCE ON A SCALE THAT DEFIES HUMAN BELIEF.


Take your pick!

AIOHO/DYOR

[mount teide] 21/9/2017 21:15

£40,000 a year into an offshore account for doing SFA for 8 years, can help some develop an incredibly poor sense of morality and the thickest of skins!

[pj 1] 21/9/2017 21:03

I do find it amazing the pre existing NEDS never even seemed to attend site and check what is/ was going on. They could have saved our investigative expenses, and more importantly time.

Surely they should have resigned when the ''mobilised workforce'' was sent elsewhere?

[mount teide] 21/9/2017 20:59

Yes, it was HND Business Studies qualified Sutcliffe who said in answer to one of my friends questions as to why the company were putting out hugely misleading statements: "don't ask me i don't run the company!"

Completely dismissive as to his responsibilities as a NED, despite the £300,000 plus of shareholders funds that were shovelled into his offshore account during the past 8 years, in return for turning a blind eye to the repeated fraud by false misrepresentation in company statements, the completely implausible cash burn, the 97% fall in the share-price post IPO and, the emergency cash raise at a 96% discount, that diluted existing shareholders 9 fold, FOR WHAT IS A VERY STRAIGHTFORWARD REAL ESTATE ASSET PROJECT - THAT COULD AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUILT WITHIN 10% OF THE ORIGINAL BUDGET AT WORSE.


AIOHO/DYOR

[saikat] 21/9/2017 20:39

James Sutcliffe and Peter Jones - what a tragedy that in London, you can't put obvious frauds behind bars for a decade or more.

[mount teide] 21/9/2017 11:05

Another day and predictably Cenkos still hard on the bid, propping up the Ports Industry equivalent of 'The Walking Dead' - yet, so embarrassed are they about advertising their relationship with Mercantile's management of proven liars they have removed all trace of the huge placing they carried out for MPL in November 2016 from their website!

A placing, as their hugely naive representative so eloquently explained was required so that: "all 200 acres of the land reclamation could be carried out in one phase, to ensure compliance with the IPO documentation". With 15 acres of additional land forecast to be reclaimed between June 2016 and Dec 2017, taking the total to 90 acres or just 45% of the IPO stated size, how's that working out Mr Stephen Keyes?

While that was the ruse used by fee blinkered Cenkos - incredibly, it was not one of the many cited by the hugely disingenuous, ever scheming white collar criminal MPL Executive Chairman Nick-it-all Gandhi(thanks PJ1), who laughably gave the market 'directors preferred specification/greater land settlement than expected/ general working capital purposes', in order to get his hands on another £37m of shareholders cash.

Longer term shareholders will recall, this came after Nick-it-all's first attempt at a further cash raise scam by way of proposing a placing for a 'ship repair facility', which failed spectacularly - however, if ever there was a case of 'if at first you don't succeed to get your hands on more shareholders cash, try, try and try again' this was it.

Such was the desperation of these scam artists to fraudulently raise more money from II's in 2016 once they had a tiny fraction of the facility under construction, they had the gall to seriously propose raising the money by floating the ludicrous idea of building the first ship repair facility in the world, where 99.99% of the global shipping fleet by tonnage would have been unable to access the facility without running aground in the access channel due to insufficient depth of water. What a great idea - set up a business at shareholders expense, where only 0.02% of the huge shipping market are potential customers - its financial GENIUS!

Since made even worse, as a result of MPL advising in 2017, they have heavily reduced from 4.5m to 3.0m/3.5m the maximum depth available in the access channel to the port, presumably to save tens of £millions by not having to dredge at all the 3 mile access channel from Mumbai Harbour(other than off the berth), despite previously claiming to have been dredging the channel for over three years(presumably at vast 'cost' knowing MPL management), that all potentially affected Navigational Charts and Marine Authority dredging tender contracts to date are yet to show any evidence whatsoever of this having occurred.

Since it is a legal requirement for Marine Authorities to immediately advise those who may be affected, of any change to the depths in navigable waterways under their responsibility, its probably fairly safe to assume NO dredging in the 3 mile approach channel has occurred during the last three years, regardless as to how many $millions of MPL shareholders cash may have been paid out to 'carry out ' such work!


AIOHO/DYOR

[someuwin] 20/9/2017 16:19

20 September, 2017

Mercantile Ports & Logistics Limited

("MPL" or the "Company")

Result of Annual General Meeting

The Board of Directors of MPL today announces that all of the resolutions proposed at the Company's Annual General Meeting ("AGM") convened today in Guernsey were duly passed. Further information on the votes cast on each resolution will be available on the Company's website shortly.

As a result of all the resolutions having passed, and as announced on 25 August 2017 (RNS No: 9560O), John Fitzgerald and Andrew Henderson have joined the Board as Non-Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer respectively. James Sutcliffe and Peter Jones also stepped down as Non-Executive Directors of the Company following the AGM.

[mount teide] 18/9/2017 10:27

Regardless as to the quality of the assets: investors should always place the highest importance on the quality of management running a company when considering an investment.

A comparison of management performance and shareholder value at two Indian Port Companies building new terminals with estimated build costs of £150m.

Adani Ports - has built within 2 years a new world class terminal with a 750m fixed quay capable of handling the latest generation 400m long, 20,000 teu container vessels, that India's largest container port JNPT is currently incapable of handling. Minimum approach channel depth - 16.5m.

Mercantile Ports - in year 5 of building a highly tidal and weather restricted small coaster and barge terminal with a much reduced land specification to that investors were told at IPO - still just 90 acres, with no sign whatsoever that the 100 acre logistics park that management told the market to expect revenue from by the end of 2014 will ever be built.

Minimum approach channel depth of 3.5m, although take that with a huge pinch of salt because there is no evidence whatsoever MPL has carried out ANY dredging in the approach channel other than directly off the berth, as evidenced by the latest navigational charts and MMB dredging tender contracts suggesting the channel depth is in fact very much less than 3.0m in places.


Since Adani Port floated in late 2012, before MPL had obtained the various consents required to commence construction(despite IPO investors being told it was a near formality in 2010 due to Nikhil Gandhi's huge experience and influence in the sector), that's as good a place as any to start the shareholder value comparison.


Adani Ports - floated at 115p and is now 406.50p giving a 253% capital GAIN + 7p in dividends

Mercantile - that old Ghandi cash disappearing magic and phantom 500 strong workforce took the share price from 107p(57% down from IPO) to just 7.75p giving a 93% capital LOSS + 0p in dividends + 9 fold dilution via an emergency placing at a 96% discount to IPO price to keep the lights on in 2017 and presumably Gandhi firmly ensconced in his Taj Mahal £1,000 a day suite to work some more of his 'investment' magic on clueless II shareholders !


Who says quality management don't make a difference!

[azalea] 17/9/2017 08:09

Saikat
Which international financial centre in a democratic country, would you consider less corrupt than London?

[saikat] 16/9/2017 18:16

You are lucky that they haven't said `by next fortnight or the following week' for 70%
control of assets. It won't happen in the next 10 years. A bunch of money launderers but otherwise illiterates. Things should fold up in the next several months once they had their fill.

Amazing money laundering scam. They are probably still hopeful that corrupt London is crooked enough for another bite of the cherry - maybe another £20m in their pockets - fresh kill. The NEDS and the NOMAD should ensure that they still have more to loot - they must be very confident. Salute to corrupt London!

[mount teide] 16/9/2017 17:18

Health Warning: MPL shareholders prone to high blood pressure or suffering with heart problems would do well to avoid reading the latest Interim Results RNS, as it has the potential to instantaneously elevate blood temperature to boiling point.

The RNS will probably make you gasp in disbelief and stamp your feet in rage, and quite possibly reduce you to helpless laughter. It will also make you tremble in terror at the realisation that the people in charge of your investments here are, in many respects, totally incompetent at best.

Many on ADVFN, with clarity, elegance and wit, have repeatedly laid bare the weaknesses of management clinically and entertainingly, all to little avail - since sadly, where MPL is concerned, it appears Warren Buffet is being proved right - that investors should only buy companies with assets so good, they could be run by an idiot - because one day they will be.

For long term MPL shareholders, the Interims RNS will surely make deeply depressing reading and re-inforces why many AIM companies are high risk investments, particularly when they are run by bloated, massively overpaid boards with a penchant for spending £25,000 a month on international travel and luxury hotels.

After desperately raising further funds last November from mostly clueless II's who carried out little due diligence worthy of the name, to have just £21m of cash left some 7 months later for so little progress since last June, suggests that unless industrial scale theft is involved, it demonstrates cost control incompetence on a truly breathtaking scale even by this board's previously appalling standards - perhaps best highlighted by the circa £44m of shareholders funds that disappeared without trace prior to the start up of on-site operations.

If the latter it highlights spectacularly well just how out of totally out of touch commercially and operationally the senior management really is.

Although the impression of whelk stalls and trust has repeatedly reared its head with MPL management over the last few years, what is both amazing and concerning is the fact that, to date not a single board member responsible for the appalling waste of investors money, has paid the price through the loss of employment - they all continue to earn ridiculous salaries for non performance with some gaining promotions.

In reality, this RNS is a truly shocking cautionary tale. The cost of terrible operational blunders and massively overpaying senior employees(£millions over the last 7 years), to burn through circa £100m of shareholders cash delivering a 98% fall in share-price, and enormous amounts of damage to investor sentiment and market confidence.

The lessons are clear. Cost control is paramount - development wise, play the percentages and don’t under any circumstances put out development cost forecasts or progress timetables that you can't to a very high level of consistency deliver on. Above all, listen, deliberate and ask yourself again and again - 'am i spending this money in shareholders best interests' before signing off any expenditure.

Considering the huge funds management initially raised to develop this port terminal, along with the additional debt(£49m) and cash(£37m) raised since, the level of construction progress made to date for the funds 'spent' is totally unacceptable because it is totally implausible in our view for any port development that is not a financial scam.

The fact that some shareholders in at the IPO in 2010, now need to see a 'forty bagger' just to get themselves back to break even, demonstrates well the sheer scale of the management incompetence.

In companies where Management routinely fail to perform, as Harry Markopolis wisely remarked - "an investors first loss is usually the best loss!"

AIOHO/DYOR

[mount teide] 16/9/2017 13:09

phowdo - 'Chinny reckon...' Lol!

AIM's longest running investment disaster 'Nightmare on Karanja Creek', more commonly known to the investment community and the City as the 'Four "Brinks Matt Heists" Scam', has now deigned to grace the market with another fantasy edition, its latest set of Interims.

If we forget for one moment the blatant fraud by false misrepresentation mercilessly exposed in possibly AIM's greatest ever work of fiction, MPL's Shareholders Circular to raise another £37m via a Placing and Open Offer in November 2016, recklessly supported by hugely naive II's who failed to carry out any due diligence worthy of the name.

As the two self serving UK Non Execs slink off with the best part of £800,000 of shareholders cash securely deposited into their offshore accounts, for 'protecting' shareholders interests all the way down from 250p a share in this investment disaster to a penny share, And where the cash spend has never had any remotely plausible relationship with the real world carrying value of the asset, rather than that which appears in MPL's accounts.

With the latest Interims, lets examine the carrying value of the 'asset' under development for the last three half year periods against the physical progress made:

H1/2016 - £29,507,000 INCREASE IN CARRYING COST

Land Reclamation - circa 50 acres
Berth Piling - 58 piles laid


H2/2016 - £29,048,000 INCREASE IN CARRYING COST

Land Reclamation - ZERO acres
Berth Piling - ZERO piles laid


H1/2017 - £21,750,000 INCREASE IN CARRYING COST
Land Reclamation - 15 acres
Berth Piling - 102 piles laid


Yes, in H2/2017 as reported previously circa £29m of cash (like the £44m prior to start of any work on-site) MOSTLY DISAPPEARED WITHOUT TRACE INTO THE INDIAN SUB-CONTINENENT ETHER FOR ZERO WORK CARRIED OUT!


LET'S NOW ADD THE 'SPEND' IN THE ABOVE THREE HALF YEAR PERIODS TOGETHER AND SEE WHAT IT HAS COLLECTIVELY BOUGHT SHAREHOLDERS:

£80,305,000 'SPENT' - A WORD WE OF COURSE WOULD USE in its loosest possible sense to describe what has been going on here.

For that shareholders have seen the following progress:

Land Reclamation - 65 acres
Berth Piling - 160 piles laid



Now consider the £57m FIXED PRICE CONTRACT signed with ITD Cementation in 2014 to carry out the Port marine engineering construction work - which according to the IPO Documentation was to complete:

200 acres of land reclamation INCLUDING a 100 acre logistics park
600m fixed, all-weather quay with ship to shore cranes
Installation of all drainage, services, internal roadways, security fencing and lighting.


In true AIM tradition, the Management and Nomad SEEM RUTHLESSLY DETERMINED to continue milking this MAINLY shareholder financed MASSIVE investment disaster(four Brinks Matt Heists to date) until the very last drop, even INCREDIBLY GOING AS FAR AS TO SAY THEY CAN RAISE MORE CASH IF NEEDED! The effrontery of these 'scam artists' err sorry this lying and deceitful management clearly knows no bounds!

MORE CASH? - ONLY FROM PEOPLE SO GULLIBLE THEY SHOULD BE SECTIONED FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY - SINCE MANAGEMENT HAVE ALREADY MADE FIXED ODD BETTING MACHINE ENTHUSIASTS LOOK LIKE SOPHISTICATED INVESTORS COMPARED WITH MOST MPL INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS.


AIMHO/DYOR