Mercantile Ports & Logis... Share Discussion Threads

[mount teide] 17/3/2024 13:12

Karanja Port was fraudulently sold to its IPO investors and banks as a 200 acre port development project that would be built to handle high value, high revenue generating container, project cargo, road trailer, trade vehicle type cargo.

An impossibility since the access channel from Mumbai Harbour has a draft restriction preventing ships carrying this type of cargo from reaching the port without running aground at least 3 miles from the terminal's jetty!

Karanja can only handle very low volume bulk cargoes like coal arriving in barges and coasters - cargo which attracts ultra low handling revenue per tonne. In the eight months between Jan and August 2023, the port handled 863k tonnes of cargo - equivalent to that which could be loaded into just TWO China-Max dry bulk carriers!

Coal handled through the Port of Mumbai currently generates cargo handling revenue of less than £1 a tonne!

And don't forget, the results of the last two years will have been greatly boosted by having revenue(with little cost) from the civil engineering company that used Karanja Port as an operating base to build a bridge over Mumbai Harbour. That contract is now finished......so, all MPL has left is the pittance they earn from handling ultra low revenue generating bulk cargo's like coal and fertiliser.

This was the hitting out the park 2022 results,
£1.80m - Revenue
£6.30m - LOSS
£43.5m - Debt
£25.0m - Debt Interest and Capital Payable over the next 4 years
£1.00m - Estimated Cash
£1.75m - Market cap

To report an £6.30m loss on just £1.8m of revenue is almost as astounding as 'spending' £44m and only having around £2-3m of physical infrastructure to show for it a year prior to commencement of the land reclamation programme in 2015!

For those that like a laugh - the market will not have long to wait before the MPL 'management' deign to grace it with the results of their collective efforts in 2023.

Sadly for those still holding the stock, MPL's former 'management', both criminals with convictions for industrial scale securities fraud, left behind a bunch of fools to mind the bank's assets.


Worth revisiting some of the breathtaking shenanigans the two shysters who originally brought the project to the London AIM casino got up to with shareholders cash and the bank's loans - a link to help refresh memories:

A little taster:

'Totally implausible cash burn of circa £44m in the year PRIOR to the start of the Land reclamation work - nearly 2 Brinks Matt heists carried out in broad daylight!.

I estimate the cash burn should have been a small fraction of the £44m at circa £3-5m.

Totally implausible cash burn AFTER Land Reclamation started - £58m between June 2016 and June 2017, and an astonishing circa £21m during Q4/2016 when no on-site activity whatsoever was going on.'



When Jeremy Warner Allen was appointed Chairman in 2019, he said "I truly believe in the potential of MPL and have full confidence that we will deliver a profitable and valuable business to all our stake holders. I have no doubt that the future will be exciting for the Company and I look forward to playing my part in growing the business and the platform as a whole."

I have since written to him and asked "what have you been doing for shareholders since joining the Board in 2018?"

As I noted, "in common with your predecessor you do not hold any shipping or ports industry professional qualifications or have any first hand senior management experience of either industry.

Consequently, as shareholders (one share), currently holding the highest professional qualifications the Shipping and Ports industries currently examine for, and with decades of senior management experience running ports and shipping companies, i'd like to offer some advice in your new role.

Suggest you start by appointing a reputable Marine Civil Engineering Consultancy to carry out a cost analysis of the Karanja Port construction work completed to date and then, after pouring yourself a very large brandy, compare the figure with the circa £160m carrying value that is currently in MPL's accounts for this 'asset'.

Once you've finished the bottle and sobered up, request the Marine Civil Engineering Consultants to then conduct a forensic audit (and give a professional opinion) on every payment over £10k made to contractors since 2012 - while they're doing that, we suggest you order yourself a case of vintage brandy for when you read the report.

Never received a reply ..... the rest as they say is history, with IPO investors now 99.8% down and most subsequent placing investors down by very similar amounts for what is a straightforward low spec real estate development.

The clueless II's who collectively gave the shysters £150m over the last decade for 'equity' should be arrested for impersonating fund management professionals.

[kumbuka] 17/3/2024 11:17

If you couldn’t see this was fraud from the beginning it only adds to showing how incompetent you are.

[kumbuka] 17/3/2024 11:15

Your opinions are worthless bully boy pj.

[pj 1] 17/3/2024 08:53

Most frauds try to go 'ligit' towards the end in an attempt to deflect was has happened historically and hide the trail so to speak, so there is always a chance gullible investors can be suckered in. Add on the P&D risk, which cleary researchcentre123 above is a part of, and its easy to see what may happen......Similar is currently happening at MIN in my opinion, but the Bulls there just dont see it, or more accurately dont want to see it because it means admitting they got it wrong.

There are also frauds where financially gain, once part completed , does not become the main focus. That changes to the fact they are simple suckering people in and it becomes a power game.

As is happening in CTAG currently, in my opinion.

[danmart2] 15/3/2024 13:28

Your in for a long wait

This is a massive fraud , do some research

[researchcentre123] 15/3/2024 13:22

Bit quiet here! I'm just waiting for for an update when hopefully the coal contracts increase

[mount teide] 24/1/2024 14:39

R123 - with the greatest respect, I would strongly urge you to carry out some high quality research on MPL and the wider ports and shipping sectors.

If you did, you'd quickly establish that MPL's equity is worthless!

[researchcentre123] 17/1/2024 09:49

When you look at it you have a new bunch of directors who've taken over and are putting their own money into the business. There have been 2 lots of director buy-ins at this deflated price. That would suggest that they believe that the dip in revenue is temporary and they will succeed in their refinance. If you add in that one director has in recent times put some millions of his own money in this business, and there are loans secured on the buildings suggesting that banks agree with the valuations. That puts assets per share at 15.9 times what it's currently trading for or 25.44 pence per share. This is essentially a start up, just starting to get revenue coming in. Of course it's not all easy, but I take some comfort in the fact that directors themselves have the same interests as shareholders.

[realdealy] 10/1/2024 16:15

Liberalism great isn't it.


Maybe Putin would stop the complete fraud of mpl. Great Britannia won't

.bring plenty of lube.

[tomboyb] 10/1/2024 12:40

This consolidated at 0.2-0.3p -

It would not surprise me if this eventually ended up there again -

[tomboyb] 10/1/2024 10:43

Interesting when the whole investor community knew not to give MPL money but was supported regardless -

Makes you wonder W I M M H -

[igoe104] 10/1/2024 08:41

Any fund thats invested in this should be black listed for not doing its due diligence properly.

Its now down 99.99% down from its listing...

[mount teide] 10/1/2024 08:36

Another totally disastrous year of non performance and another certain massive loss - to now try and blame it on one month's poor throughput performance of an ultra low revenue generating cargo like bulk coal is laughable!

Now the revenue from the short term TATA contract - where they rented a large area of the terminal hardstanding and guaranteed access to a section of the jetty ( effectively allowing the contractor to operate as an independent port operator inside MPL's port) - has now stopped, all that is left is a few ultra low revenue and margin dry bulk cargoes like coal that most other small terminals will not handle, because they cannot afford to!

[researchcentre123] 23/11/2023 16:44

A little odd - as shares sold prices go up. Maybe there's a big order?

[researchcentre123] 27/10/2023 07:52

Seems to me that if directors are buying with their own cash, which they are, then there is very likely to be a big upside here

[pj 1] 17/9/2023 18:55

🤣🤣🤣😲8562;😲ԅ62;😲😲;😲

[juchris222] 17/9/2023 18:53

This company has a very good NAV .

[danmart2] 06/9/2023 15:09

Hahaha


20p

Read the message boards, this company is a scam and a diabolical investment

Its being ramped so people can sell into the rise

[firestarter1] 06/9/2023 14:43

Bought some here will sell at 20p

[mount teide] 12/6/2023 07:27

MRF - M&G - Richard Penny - who moved to Crux Asset Management about 2-3 years ago after losing 99% of his circa £15m IPO investment plus further placing cash in MPL.

And guess what one of Richard's first investments at Crux was?

A shareholding in MPL on the basis of after falling so far, it was in his opinion now a Special Situation 'recovery stock'! The share price is since down massively!

I rest my case your honour!


Posted 18 months or so ago on here:

'While Richard Penny may be a 'Hall of Fame' Fund Manager, like all of us he is not infallible and can occasionally get it wrong, sometimes spectacularly so.

When Richard was at M&G, his fund was one of the two major shareholders in Mercantile Ports & Logistics (MPL). I tried in vain, via a number of long phone calls, to explain that the company was a huge fraud and how I knew.

Despite providing overwhelming evidence to support this view, he still went on to take part in a subsequent £37m Placing(after M&G had already put in £15m at the £72m IPO) ...that was supported by a Shareholders Circular I described to him as one of AIM's greatest ever works of fiction, and how I knew.

Sadly, the rest is history, the IPO investors who stumped up £72 million are currently 99.8% down, for what is a straightforward real estate investment. At the time shareholders were told by the lying shysters running the company, that the IPO funds were sufficient to ensure the company was fully funded through to completion of the build out and commencement of operations!

The company has since raised another £130 million from further placings and bank loans, yet after 12 years this tiny new port development is still not even half complete and has a carrying value in the books of circa £190m.

Two industry professionals and myself believe the current value of the work completed to date is around £20-25 million.

The banks who lent MPL £49m have a lien over the asset.

The former MPL CEO who was re-employed by MPL as a high paid consultant, was arrested in 2019 by the FBI on arrival at JFK airport, and charged with a carrying out a $300 million securities fraud in the US. He is currently out on a 7 $figure Bail awaiting trial.

The former MPL Executive Chairman who is still a Non Exec, has a criminal record for industrial scale insider trading and is currently the subject of a number of writs alleging fraud and embezzlement, including one stating he siphoned hundreds of £millions out of a company he previously had executive responsibility for into bank accounts held by him and his family. The company subsequently went in to administration.

M&G's original $15m is 99.8% down, and their subsequent placing 'investment' 99.2% down.

Incredibly, some 5 years later the scam is still ongoing after the shysters running the company were able to keep the lights on by convincing the clueless II's to support another £47m of equity placings.

Latest MPL Interim Results:

'Strong balance sheet with total assets of £148 million (June 2020: £168 million), a debt to equity ratio of 0.47 (June 2020: 0.38) and cash of £1.68 million at 30 June 2021 (June 2020: £ 7.80 million).'

Current Market Cap: £6.9m

Roy Chubby Brown wants to know where they get their stand-up material from!

Link below to Letter sent to the General Council of Cenkos the City Broker who to this day still acts as their NOMAD - one of seven, which went unanswered ...... they didn't even have the courtesy to acknowledge receipt.

Shortly afterwards all references to MPL were removed from their website.

Most of the content was discussed with Richard, who subsequently decided to listen to the two UK NED's who suggested he was being misled - they resigned a few years later after trousering nearly £1m between them for doing Sweet FA for shareholders.'

[danmart2] 11/6/2023 20:21

This has all the hallmarks of a complete and utter scam