Mercantile Ports & Logis... Share Discussion Threads

[diku] 13/1/2020 21:07

Soon to be 0.9p...

[mount teide] 13/1/2020 20:24

Yet another all time low!

The 124,000 sold at 1.15p today raised the grand sum of £1.8k - that holding cost someone £310k at the IPO 10 years ago!

A total scandal that so much shareholder value has been lost.

When the first placing in 2016 reared its ugly head, the 'management' said that the land reclamation of the entire 200 acre port development as per the IPO Document, would be completed by Q3/2017 if only YOU MUGS support us by giving us a further £37m - since increased by a further £32m in yet another placing supported by the clueless II community! And all this before a single penny of revenue has been generated.

So some 3 years 3 months following the November 2016 placing and open offer of £37m - how much land reclamation has been achieved.

Just 15 acres has been added to the 75 acres of previous low cost foreshore land reclamation after close to £70m of further cash raises!

Of the 90 acres, just 15 acres has since been block paved for open storage of low revenue cargo!

The same contractor just 5 miles away commenced building JPNT Container Terminal 4 in 2015 - the 225 acre deep sea container terminal was built on land reclaimed from Mumbai Harbour where the water depth was 22 metres. The quay and terminal hardstanding/container park was an order of magnitude greater engineering specification than Karanja Port and included a rail terminal for handling containers over half a mile long. It was built and operational in 2 years 3 months and did not have a single day lost for land reclamation during the annual 5 month monsoon season - while at Karanja, every year from the commencement of construction in 2013/14, the monsoon season saw a 6 month stoppage of all land reclamation and most quay construction.

Asked to comment on the performance of the MPL 'management', many might suspect the New York Mafia would probably say: "we could learn from these people!"

[mount teide] 08/1/2020 14:10

L&G paid £6m for 2.4m shares at IPO, and heavily topped up in subsequent placings.

Gandhi and Bakhsi have managed to turn L&G's £6.0m 'investment' at IPO and British Steel Pension Fund's 'investment' of £4.75m after 10 years largely into loose change - since both are now highly unlikely to realise any value from their holdings.

Offered £10k for their total holdings, if we were them we'd take it in a heartbreak.

AIOHO/DYOR

[mount teide] 08/1/2020 13:51

New all-time low reached!

House Broker Cenkos is on the offer at 1.3p - while Cantor are only prepared to Bid 0.75p for your shares - some 99.7% down from IPO.

The only comfort shareholders may draw from this racket worthy of the New York Mafia, is that the 880,000 shares GIVEN to former CEO and now highly paid consultant Pavin Bakhshi at IPO, has fallen in value from £2.2m to £2.6k, and the 12.7m shares GIVEN to Nikhil Gandhi at IPO has fallen in value from £31.5m to £38k.

Not that it will worry either!

AIOHO/DYOR

[papy02] 05/1/2020 11:42

Closed my Short here on Fri. Made good money from 7.66p in May 17, with a couple of reloads at 2.35 and 2.43. Had expected this to be insolvent by now. In the end I decided not worth the borrow costs for an unpredictable time while we wait for that.

[diku] 05/1/2020 11:22

Give this fishy port back to the fisherman...they will be so delighted...

[mount teide] 04/1/2020 19:58

RNS / Contract win and progress update - 27 December 2017

'Project update

Having announced that piling had been completed on 3 November, the Company is pleased to report that three berths on the jetty have been completed and are capable of receiving vessels.

Channel dredging is complete and dredging in the berth pocket is progressing in line with the jetty becoming functional.

The reclaimed land is being readied with the required finished surfaces for the different cargo types.

An initial area, approximately 50 acres, will be completed and available as the necessary back-up land by January 2018, IN TIME FOR THE FIRST CARGO UNDER THE CON-TRACT ANNOUNCED ON 20 August 2017, which is SCHEDULED TO LAND during the THIRD WEEK OF JANUARY 2018.

Reclamation work has continued in parallel with other workstreams since the monsoon eventually ceased in October and, now that the site is dry, reclamation and ground improvement activity for the balance of the reclamation works will accelerate and continue whilst the Facility is operating.'

Reality: Some two years later around 15 acres has been part prepared for the storage of ultra low value break-bulk and bulk cargo.

No Cargo under the Contract was landed in January 2018 - or during any of 2018, and by the looks of things during 2019.

The land reclamation stopped at 95 acres of the 200 acres due to be reclaimed in one development - and has not been added to for three years.

Many have suggested that the passage of time has revealed the RNS, like the Shareholders Circular to raise $37m in November 2016, to be as close to the textbook technical definition of Fraud by Misrepresentation as it's possible to get.

[escapetohome] 03/1/2020 19:50

The song accompaniment to your video is far too upbeat and cheery.

Could you pick one off the ‘italian job’ film.

It would probably be cheery but better reflect whats going on

How about “ we are the self preservation society” , certainly so, they get away with it year after year.

[vijay4teli] 03/1/2020 15:29

You can take help of RTI act, ( Right to information) to get details on role of Indian banks in this project.

[phowdo] 03/1/2020 15:05

PMSL!
Gotta love the authentic rust appearance that makes it look old and disused rather than new and unused.

[waterloo01] 03/1/2020 15:03

Thieves and crooks. Must be time for another raise.

[mount teide] 03/1/2020 14:51

Video shot in November 2019 of the dirt track port approach road (and fishing boats in the creek alongside it) running up to the closed rusted gates( held in position by a rock), at the entrance to the Port Terminal.

No Port activity whatsoever, No ships, No HGV vehicles collecting or dropping off cargo, NO security presence at the Entrance gate, No dockers, No Landside workers, No Cargo in storage, No port traffic on the approach road.

After nine years, the Port(ABOUT 20% OF IT), according to management opened for business 9 months ago BUT as predicted, other than for a stage managed video of a single barge cargo that was loaded directly to road vehicle and went straight out the port, NO SUBSEQUENT PORT ACTIVITY looks to have since occurred. The cargo handling revenue figure for 2019 should make sobering reading for shareholders - particularly since the CEO had confidently predicted 2.0 million tonnes for 2018 (we said Zero, actual figure: Zero), ratcheting up to double that in 2019(Actual: our prediction: Zero - looks spot on the money once again).

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS - YOU WERE REPEATEDLY WARNED YOU WERE BEING CONNED, well before the first of two subsequent placings totalling circa £70 million!



By comparison JNPT Terminal 4 Container Terminal just 5 miles away on the Uran Peninsula, is nealry 10 times the size of Karanja and orders of magnitude greater specification, was built and operational in just 2 years 3 months, and is already out-growing itself with the owners submitting a new planning application to expand.

[mount teide] 18/12/2019 18:00

L2: 1 v 1 / 1.3p v 1.35p - Market Cap £25m

How two spivs managed to turn £717,390 at IPO into £3,400 10 years later.

Difficult not to feel for the individual who threw in the towel today and sold 286,696 shares below the bid at 1.2p.

[diku] 22/11/2019 21:50

Another form of mis selling PPI...economy could do with another boost...

[lefrene] 19/11/2019 18:39

For a so called professional how has this Mr Penny got the gaul to tout for money to run another fund? I wonder if he knows Mr Woodford, who also seems to have confused 'investment' with 'betting'!

[vijay4teli] 19/11/2019 18:23

I bet no work in last 3 years.

And mark my words, as soon as you start feeling that some work will begin, monsoon will be at door step.

New year soon and hope you are not fooled in new year

[mount teide] 14/11/2019 12:41

Whats the quickest way to become a millionaire ?

Start off as a billionaire and invest in a Gandhi and Bakshi London stock market IPO!

[mount teide] 14/11/2019 12:37

How to turn £20 million into £36k!

Those two sells yesterday totalling 8.0 million shares would have bought a £20 million Belgravia mansion back at the time of the 2010 IPO - after 10 years of Gandhi and Bakshi working their 'business development' magic, what's left would struggle to buy a flat in Salford or Toxteth!

[my retirement fund] 12/11/2019 14:12

Perhaps he is as bent as them ? Theres definitely something a miss with some of these fund managers. Just look at some of Neil Woodfords investments that folk are finally waking up to and having to face the fact many of which are worthless. When you look at some of his such as cold fusion where the laws of physics needed to be altered to make the concept work. You have to ask was he in on the fraud from the start or simply on drugs at the time he invested? Which ever one it was, that seems the only likely explanation.

[mount teide] 11/11/2019 22:59

Well well - When an equity investment manager at L&G, Richard Penny's Fund was a major shareholder in Mercantile Ports from IPO at 250p. It subsequently lost the fund an absolute fortune - when he left L&G to start his own CRUX investment fund last November his L&G Mercantile holding was an eye-watering 99.2% down.

Despite explaining to Penny back in 2016 how two industry friends and i knew from long telephone calls with the CEO, that he(and the Chairman) were proven liars and totally untrustworthy, he not only elected to ignore the long list of evidence we provided but also our advice not to double down by supporting what we called at the time 'AIM's Greatest Work of Fiction' or as it was more commonly known in the City - the Mercantile Shareholders Circular for the November 2016 £37m Placing. That additional holding is now 85% down!

Imagine our surprise to recently read in a Bank of Scotland interview with Penny about his new Investment Fund, that some of his former investments make an appearance in his new CRUX Fund, most notably a tiny AIM-listed company called Mercantile Ports & Logistics (MPL).

' “It’s not for widows and orphans,” he says, “but this is a Special Situations fund and it is in a portfolio that is diversified.”

Mercantile is an India-focused logistics company, which boasts on its website of having “delivered several ground-breaking, mega infrastructure projects”. These include India’s first ever private sector port and logistics facility, the first private sector railway line and the first private expressway.

Today, its operations are focused around the Karanja Port near Mumbai, which it says is a key gateway to trade for eight land-locked states in India. Going forward, it looks to identify other suitable locations to bolster its portfolio of ports and logistics facilities.

But it’s had a chequered past. It floated back in October 2010 at 250p, and Penny invested in it during its early history. But its share price chart since IPO is scary viewing.

Soon after beginning to build the port, the project saw hit regulatory issues, explains Penny. Those delayed the project substantially, and the share price fell dramatically.

Two years ago, Mercantile raised £36 million by issuing new shares priced at just 10p. It came back to the market for more cash earlier this month, placing shares at just 2p.

This round has been well backed by institutions, with the likes of Legal & General, M&G, Schroders and Miton, who combined own half of the business, continuing to back the firm.

Penny says that’s given him confidence, as has the strength of the management team and board of directors. “We take assurance from that, for all that this is a minority sport Indian assets on AIM in the UK – and it’s as contrarian as you’d like,” he continues.

Penny has invested 40% of the portfolio in FTSE 100 companies and a third in small caps. The rest is in FTSE 250 names, with around 10% in cash. Currently, he’s underweight mid caps due to valuations in that area.'


Considering what they knew of the behaviour and performance of the Executive Board,
that most of the major II shareholders from the IPO at 250p were involved in both subsequent £37m and £30m placings at a respective 96.0% and 99.2% discount to the IPO price, simply beggars belief!

The Karanja Port Project has a management claimed carrying value of circe £160 million, we believe it should be nearer £30 million.

Never has the phrase "A fool and his money are soon parted" been more apt!

[mount teide] 11/11/2019 21:42

Mercantile Chairman Nikhil Gandhi has seen his homes and business premises raided by the Special Fraud Office investigating yet another huge fraud which has seen £1.4 billion siphoned off from a company he and three alleged co-conspirators had executive responsibility for!


IL&FS fraud case: ED searches homes, business premises of 4 industrialists

Nikhil Gandhi and three other former Directors of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) are under investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), who searched their homes and business premises for alleged irregularities in loans taken by them from a financial subsidiary of the company.

The search operation was conducted at multiple locations, including Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, at the residences and on the business premises of these four. They have seized several properties, documents and papers in connection with the probe.

Sources said that the ED has found that huge loans had been extended to companies of the four without following the due diligence.

The ED is also examining the charges against the audit firm in the Special Fraud Office prosecution complaint. “We are currently looking at all aspects that led to fraud in the company. The agency will examine the role of auditors in the proceeds of crime and the complex structure allegedly created so that funds could be easily siphoned off,” said the official.

Last month, enforcement sleuths had arrested two former executives of IL&FS group firms under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Sources said the ED suspects proceeds of the crime to be over Rs 13,000 crore/£1.4 billion, involving several overseas deals. The sources added there is evidence showing that advances were given to entities linked with senior executives of IL&FS.

The Special Fraud Office charge-sheet includes several instances where the director of a borrower entity at some point was on the board of IL&FS. Such loans were later transferred to the account of these directors.

Meanwhile, the new board of IL&FS is learnt to have sent notices to all the former directors of the firm and had sought their response.

Source: Mumbai Business Standard

[diku] 07/11/2019 21:01

Cowboys and Indians go hand in hand...just like in the movies...

[pj 1] 31/10/2019 21:43

Pavan. '' we cannot take aerial photos of the site as its in a no fly zone.''

Pilot employed by me and 2 others off the Bulletin Board '' what no fly zone?'' ''what military base?''.

Pavan. '' who are you to question me?''