Mercantile Ports & Logis... Share Discussion Threads

[papy02] 01/7/2024 22:04

MT, the way I read it was that William Black via his vehicle Armstrong Investments was the Investor. I’d assumed Nortrust Nominees were just a broker, but hadn’t researched that.

Wonder who WB is, and how he got invested here. Should look into it out of interest, but life is too short.

[mount teide] 01/7/2024 14:41

Nortrust Nominees Limited reduce their holding to below 5%.

Nortrust (a pension fund) still have over £300k invested here - would pay good money to read their DD/Investment Case Research on MPL!

[mount teide] 27/6/2024 18:43

Appalling results but, more or less in line with my expectation.

So, to increase revenue by 12% YOY, saw the operating costs go up by 71%!

As in previous years, NO economy of scale operating cost savings as the cargo handled increased!

Only port I've ever come across where the costs increase much faster than the revenue generated as the tonnage handled through the port increases. This occurs every year at Karanja!

Coal and cement cargoes attract extremely low handling rates and so are mostly transported in very high capacity, deep draught ships, through purpose built deepwater terminals with automated handling equipment.

As mentioned previously, handling these low value cargoes at a circa '$200m' build cost and still only half built break bulk terminal like Karanja is extremely expensive - NO PORT OPERATOR IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD DO IT!

Even were they to handle 10 million tonnes (7 times more than last year) they would still only generate a pittance in total revenue. Dirty, low handling rate bulk cargoes are rarely shipped through break bulk cargo terminals for a very good reason - it's almost impossible to make any money from them!

The going concern situation is to be expected, as next years operating performance WILL be worse than this year based on the expected small ramp up in bulk cargo volumes, as they have simply replaced one customer who was renting storage and use of the quay (ie MPL received revenue but had no costs), with more low handling rate bulk cargo, that has very high handling costs at a port terminal like Karanja.

Totally uninvestible - the equity has been worthless since they claimed to have 'spent' $45m one year before they got onto the foreshore to start reclaiming the land on which to build the terminal !

My estimation of the current value of the terminal is around $25m - if you believe the books(and only an idiot would) they have 'spent' close to $200m part building Karanja Port over the last 10 years!

AIMHO/DYOR

[my retirement fund] 27/6/2024 16:51

This will probably do another 100% in July when the refinancing come through

[pre] 27/6/2024 11:01

£5.5m revenue and statutory loss of £21.26m. They had £2.88m cash left at end of dec 23 so that will be dwindling. Read the going concern statement and it hardly positive.

They've burnt through the cash they raised and are looking to restructure their debt mountain. How on earth will they pay back the interest and meet their debt obligations as they have had a freeze on repayments. Not good at all.

[waterloo01] 27/6/2024 06:35

Not much to add.

The Company delivered revenues of £ 5.5 million. Statutory loss before tax was £ 21.26 million, equating to 0.11 pence per share."

[mount teide] 31/5/2024 15:01

The coal shipment port handling and storage rates for the volumes MPL handles would be very unlikely to cover the handling costs, never mind generate a surplus to buy a decent lunch, or pay back a few GBP of the interest on the circa £40m of bank debt!

[researchcentre123] 30/5/2024 09:43

So according to the January statement the coal shipments should be up again by now.... actually by 2 months ago. I guess that if they had new contracts, we'd know about it by now......

[researchcentre123] 28/5/2024 12:29

Lets see how many people on this board. Touch like if you're reading this.

[researchcentre123] 12/5/2024 21:57

I think the clincher here for me is Gandhi https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/mumbai-loan-fraud-case-ed-seizes-jewellery-worth-rs-30-crore-skil-infra-chairman-nikhil-gandhi-1901020-2022-01-17 It does seem that if he's been "flexible" with the banks elsewhere he's likely to have been flexible here, hence the balance sheet is not what it seems.

[fft] 26/4/2024 23:42

Don't forget that they said they couldn't provide aerial photos of the work being carried out because it was closed airspace. Pavan said that in front of 30 people at a mello meeting in London. I checked the airspace around Mumbai and no such closure existed. The private pilot we hired also said that wasn't true, but after flying up and down the creek he couldn't find this new port because no work had even been started.....

[diku] 26/4/2024 20:42

Maybe it was all a Bollywood stage set up during viewings...

[my retirement fund] 20/4/2024 19:01

To clarify, I mean you'd have to have an IQ below 75 and have lived in total isolation from most others in the community to have believed all carryings on and operations were quite normal here over many years its been going on

[my retirement fund] 20/4/2024 18:55

When you hear about institutional investors doing this sort of thing, you have to suspect they are getting some sort of kickback from the fraudulent operation. Based on the common sense assumptions that nobody can be ignorant and stupid otherwise.

[pj 1] 20/4/2024 18:22

Yes. They were taken to view the port from the sea in a speed boat, as it was too dangerous to view via land due to H&S concerns with construction traffic, which was bluff as nothing was happening anyway.

[mount teide] 20/4/2024 14:28

Yes - they and the Nomad Representative Stephen Keys visited Karanja Port on numerous occasions - usually just before MPL were about to raise more funds to supposedly check the accuracy of the proposed market documentation to effect the cash raise - including prior to the Shareholders Circular in 2017 to raise another £37m.

A document Industry professional friends and I described as one of AIM's Greatest ever Works of Fiction. We were proved entirely correct. Stephen Keys failed to pick up on any of its fraudulent content, preferring to act more like MPL's defence council!


M&G - Richard Penny - who moved to Crux Asset Management about 2-3 years ago after losing 99% of his circa £15m MPL IPO investment plus 98% of 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 a further circa 98%!

I rest my case your honour!


Posted previously 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 investing in highly specialist sectors he has zero professional knowledge of.

When Richard was at M&G, his fund was one of the two major shareholders in Mercantile Ports & Logistics (MPL). Some industry friends and I tried in vain, via a number of long phone calls, to explain that the company was a huge fraud and how we 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(He pleaded guilty last year in a plea bargain deal).

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, the scam is still ongoing today 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.

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.'

[davidosh] 20/4/2024 13:14

Do you know if the institutional funders ever visited the port facility. It seems they have been funding this blind

[mount teide] 20/4/2024 09:23

These are the stellar 'hitting out the park' 2022 results the 'management' have to beat in 2023:

£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 a catastrophic £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! The equivalent of TWO Brink's Matt's heists carried out in broad daylight!

AIMHO/DYOR

[mount teide] 16/4/2024 13:20

R123 - if you had the faintest idea of how to manage a commercial port operation you would be aware that MPL's equity is totally worthless( has been for many years for the reasons I've posted here), and the single asset the company owns as pointed out by w01, is effectively owned by the banks, since they sensibly have a lien over the port asset.

I strongly suspect the Indian banks that extended £50m of loans to MPL will not be able to believe their good fortune, at the news that MPL's 'management' is continuing to pump yet further funds raised from equally clueless Institutional shareholders(who are mostly sitting on massive losses), to further develop the facilities, and thereby raise its value by a few more million.....which I would currently estimate at £20m.

This is still some £10m short of the £30m of loan that has been drawdown and 'spent' by the management before the banks put a stop on any further withdrawals - presumably after, as I suggested, they got an independent valuation of the not even 50% of land reclamation and low quality port infrastructure completed since they commenced work on the scam, err sorry, port project in 2015!

AIMHO/DYOR

[waterloo01] 16/4/2024 12:27

It's the same people, in particular Jay and Ghandi. Just Pavan has changed (although bet he still gets a kick back). This is and will essentially owned by the banks.

[researchcentre123] 16/4/2024 11:36

I think info from 5+ years ago does not reflect the current status. Directors have changed and continued to buy in and NAV per share is an order of magnitude bigger than the share price. I think there could be large upside here

[kumbuka] 20/3/2024 14:43

Looks that way in every way.

[danmart2] 20/3/2024 14:15

This company is a massive fraud

[researchcentre123] 20/3/2024 08:58

I'm looking at it fairly simply - whatever went on before with previous directors, appears to have some value in excess of market cap and new directors have bought in recently - surely they know more than we do. This isn't a huge bet for me but I think it could work out. Next step is see if directors are true to their word and coal shipment drop will turn other way as promised.