Sdic Power Discussion Threads

[paulypilot] 21/4/2013 23:49

Hi David,

I certainly won't ever be going anywhere near anything Jim Mellon promotes again, after this debacle at Speymill & Speymill Deutsche, the latter cost me an arm & a leg, at the worst possible time.

To this day I can remember that meeting we had with the SDIC management (I don't think it was the Directors, as they were Non Execs in the Isle of Man), where they spun a good story, and it all sounded convincing. I was completely taken in by them, but afterwards I felt that the body language and atmosphere seemed very odd - they looked & acted really shifty, chose their words carefully, and were in a great hurry to shut down questioning & end the meeting quickly.

As it turned out, the people at that meeting totally misrepresented the true position with the Banks, which were actually desperate to get out of the loans to SDIC, but this was concealed from us.

If you have a list of their names, I'd be very interested to see it, as I won't go near any companies they surface at again in the future.


I learned a very valuable lesson from this meeting, at a great financial cost, that if it doesn't feel right, if the people are sending out strange signals, if what they are saying doesn't match their body language & gestures, if you just come out of a meeting feeling disturbed & uncomfortable, then get on the phone to your broker straight away & sell the lot!

Cheers, Paul.

[davidosh] 21/4/2013 12:23

Mmmm...This morning the Sunday Times Rich List has Jim Mellon at number 110 with £800m stating..

'Soaring property prices in Germany have helped Mellon who has 70% of his wealth tied up in 40000 apartments there'

Does not mention the Speymill debacle. He has not replied to my emails or text messages for over a year now so clearly not interested in SDIC shareholders. He lives in the Isle of Man and the Agms were held there on the day before Christmas Eve...enough said !

[bisiboy] 24/12/2012 11:28

davidosh-
i dont think the accounts are online
i have not had the chance to study them in great detail- far to depressing reading this time of year.
still cant beleive the mess they have made of this.right asset class wrong vehicle.

[bisiboy] 24/12/2012 11:23

sleepy-
its more a case of when it was!
26/11/12.

at 9 am in the isle of man.

very short notice if any i cant remember when i received the report and accounts but i am falrly sure it was undr a month ago.

maximum directors fees undr articles of association 400k they only took 118k
over the year perhaps we should be grateful!

[sleepy] 23/12/2012 23:06

Bisiboy - thank you. When and where is the AGM (if they can afford one)?

[davidosh] 23/12/2012 01:12

Who are the 'certain parties' ? We should be told what actions are being considered and who is making the decisions on our behalf ?...I doubt JM is likely to want to push forward against the management team who were part of SYG where he is the majority shareholder !

Are the accounts online anywhere ?

Last year the Agm was held on Christmas Eve in the Isle of Man

[bisiboy] 22/12/2012 22:01

davidosh
i received them in the post
they were approved on the 25th october
net assets 764k euro after mellon loan repayment

re possible legal action it is vague but to quote

the company has advised certain parties that they are reserving the rights with regards to potential claims or action that may develop as a result of the previous financing arrangemrnts and the sale of the property asssets and subsidiaries.
the board will continue to explore these opportunities where appropriate.

although they are technically not bust they have no income generating assets
and little cash left.
still at least the directors should be able to collect their fees for a little longer

[davidosh] 19/12/2012 18:09

bisiboy....where did you get hold of the report and accounts ?

Who is talking about legal action and against who ?

[bisiboy] 19/12/2012 17:21

troll- accounts have been circulated they are bust.this is possibly the worst investment i have made in terms of the amount invested
scurbs-you are spot on someone has some quite a few questions to answer.

in the report they talk about possible legal action but this is quite vague.

[scburbs] 18/12/2012 19:09

Did anyone see any sales announced other than the €2m receipt which presumably went on costs and the Mellon loan?

The fall in value reported in a rising market for the properties in that securitised portfolio was crazy along with the need for massive capex after the completion of a capex programme.

A salutory lesson in the importance of good management even in what might seem a hard market to get wrong! Amazing that SYG is close to its end as well given the crazy fees it took. Any remaining value their also looks set to go to Mellon due to his loan.

[the troll] 18/12/2012 18:38

they should have circulated 2012's Accounts & called the AGM by now ( according to last years timescales anyway ), I take it no ones heard anything ?

[the troll] 18/12/2012 18:32

SDIC website's disappeared; how does Mellon propose to update us concerning the 'status' of the Co. ( as promised ) now, by carrier-pigeon ?

[loverat] 02/12/2012 17:41

Another disgrace by the looks of it. Its cases like this that cast a dark shadow over the whole market. Investors are too scared to invest in anything these days.

What is the name of the AIM toe-rag here? I'll put him on my ever growing list of directors to avoid.

[davidosh] 02/12/2012 11:49

I have sent JM various requests for information but he has not replied to any? I wanted to attend the last shareholder meeting but it was held at the most inconvenient time and place possible, Maybe we need a shareholder action group to establish what caused the demise and to get some closure here?

[mazbar] 02/12/2012 11:32

I take it us shareholders will see nothing?

I haven't heard from sdic in a long time.

[bisiboy] 25/9/2012 18:09

its sickening isnt it

[strollingmolby] 24/9/2012 10:41

It's a shame SDIC couldn't keep its creditors at bay / reorganise its debts to allow for the time when property prices rose.

US buyout titans bet on German residential property
The Times

Leading US private equity firms have emerged as prominent acquirers of large German residential property portfolios this year, underlining growing demand from overseas investors for high-yielding asset classes in the "core" eurozone nation.

Germany's housing real estate market "is one of the best places in Europe to invest", said Roger Orf, head of European property at Apollo Global Management, which owns a 15% stake in leading local letting company Deutsche Annington Immobilien.

Apollo's peer, Cerberus, purchased 22,000 flats from the bankrupt Speymill Deutsche Immobilien in May, two months after a deal by Blackstone to take over 8,000 flats from bankrupt investor Level One.

Overall, foreign buyers splashed out €3.3bn on German apartment blocks during the six months ended June, according to Handelsblatt.

[checkers2] 04/9/2012 21:48

Here is a reply I recieved from shareSoc regarding SDIC:

Reference your inquiry concerning Speymill Deutsche, there is a group of shareholders who are trying to tackle this problem because there are certain aspects of the affair which give cause for concern (particularly the role of the brokers who promoted the company's shares to their clients).

[sleepy] 17/7/2012 23:26

Yes Mazbar it might well be worth raising with ShareSoc

[mazbar] 17/7/2012 22:41

This whole debacle might be worth raising with ShareSoc.

[checkers2] 17/7/2012 22:11

I have also invested substantially (for me) in SDIC. Recent reports even show a healthy rise in property prices in Germany, and overall I think the investment thesis was sound. What I don't understand is how the company detoriated so quickly and how shareholders have been frozen out of further developements.

Is there no way some kind legal challenge to this process can be initiated?


Painful lesson on this one for me - on every corporate failure there is always a famous investor. I won't follow Jim Mellon or anyone else famous in the future. Jim Mellon seems to invest in shoddy management - has anyone seen Billing Group Services...another Mellon disaster.

[bisiboy] 04/7/2012 17:55

do we know if any shares were traded on the matched bargain vacility

[mazbar] 03/7/2012 14:14

I hope so. Otherwise we will have been treated extraoridinarily unfairly.