The Artisanal Spirits Share Discussion Threads

[shawzie] 23/1/2007 12:34

Come on chaps, did any of you go to the AGM or EGM and raise the issues that now seem to offend you?
We could all have lost our investment in ART, but Stevens has worked and
invested in the company to rescue ART and turn ART into a sound little business to the benefit of ALL shareholders.
I am in full agreement with the share consolidation and reduction in the number of shareholders.
However, I would have preferred to see all the fractional shares being
purchased by the company for the benefit of the company and not for the benefit of one shareholder.
I do not grudge Stevens his gain (perhaps a reward for all his good work) as
the transaction does not impact ART Balance Sheet and shareholders who were forced to sell were not unfairly dealt with.

[lionelh] 23/1/2007 12:28

You're waking up at last! With nearly 30% of the voting rights Aspen already have de facto control as they can block any special or extraordinary resolution (75% required)and with all the shares in nominee accounts (no voting rights) it will be very hard in practical terms to even pass any ordinary resolution (51%)without Aspen's support. The Articles of Association of Art will show lots of things requiring a special or extraordinary resolution (such as removing or censuring a director)which Aspen can block itself by casting its vote. That is control in practical terms.

Only Aspen know what it's true intentions are. Time will tell.

[jfishy] 23/1/2007 12:23

Nice letter swiftnick :-)

I still don't understand why ART didn't simply cancel the shares or add them to treasury stock.

As swiftnick said: Legal, yes, ethical - I think not. Has Mr Dean changed his name perhaps?!!

[addas99] 23/1/2007 12:14

Amusing letter swiftnick, let us know if you if you get a reply.
Must agree with those expecting MBO attempt, just wonder what would be deemed a decent time lapse following this consolidation. If Aspen want full control they'll end up with it for sure, I'd hate to speculate what PIs would be offered but certain, after eight years, they'd be no nice surprise generosity-wise.

[darkdogs] 23/1/2007 08:46

swiftneck you forgot to add on the dividend the shares are getting

[steeleye] 23/1/2007 08:39

How would he have controlled the amount of shares that Aspen would have had to pick up?

[gjabrj] 23/1/2007 08:31

Hopefully the remaining shareholders have a reasonable stake and would vote against any MBO on the cheap.

What % of the vote would he need to pass an MBO.

Lets hope Mr T in on our side as he must have a good holding now.

[swiftnick] 23/1/2007 08:19

I am fairly sure he would have to make a bid. Which is why he made sure that the number stayed below 30%.

[gjabrj] 23/1/2007 08:15

Aspen now holds 29.55%.

What is the procedure if the Shareholding hits 30%?

[swiftnick] 23/1/2007 08:10

Yes, you are right that the purchase price of 130p (3.25p pre consolidation) was indeed based on the average of the closing prices in the five days prior to the announcement of the reorganisation.

Two things.

Firstly, the market had imperfect information during those five days, because the interim results announcement was made on the same day as the reorganisation. Mr Stevens would have known the content of those results whereas the market did not. He was therefore in a better position to see that the huge discount to NAV was unwarranted.

Secondly, any windfall arising from a market re-rating because of the reorganisation should have accrued to the company (and therefore shareholders in general) and not to one individual shareholder, particularly one sitting in a privileged position.

It may have been legal, but was it ethical?

[bylow] 23/1/2007 00:37

swiftnick...........a nice bit of sarcasm that is well deserved. No doubt Stevens would argue in his defence that the purchase price of 130p (3.25p pre consolidation) was the current market mid price at the time of the announcement of the reorganisation. However, it demonstrates in my opinion that he is moving towards controlling or indeed acquiring the whole of Artisan on the cheap.He could have made a gesture of generosity by agreeing to pay a price closer to the TNAV.This was a COMPULSORY purchase BY DEFAULT.
I would not be surprised if Stevens comes forward very soon with an offer to buy us all out at the current market price. He would get away with it.

[swiftnick] 22/1/2007 23:11

Mr Michael Stevens
Artisan (UK) plc
Mace House
Sovereign Court
Ermine Business Park
Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire
PE29 6XU


Dear Mr Stevens,

As one of the 5,000 remaining shareholders in Artisan (UK) plc I am writing to congratulate you on the £167,092 profit that Aspen Finance has made today at the expense of those shareholders of the company who were foolish enough not to have had the foresight to purchase a holding in the company which was exactly divisible by 6,000 shares.

As I am sure you have already calculated, today's closing bid price of 157p values the 618,858 shares which your company compulsorily acquired at 27p each more than the price paid, yielding an instant profit of £167,092.

There cannot be many directors of a UK listed company who would have carried off a transaction such as this and I am sure that I speak for many other shareholders in saying how delighted we are that this exercise has been so successful for you.

Why not make this into an annual event? Each year you could divide the share capital by a different number and then pick up the fractional entitlements at 17.2% below market price like you did today. A couple of tips: Larger numbers work better than small numbers as the fractional entitlements would also be bigger and you could then pick up more shares on the cheap. Also, try to avoid round numbers such as 6,000 as there may be one or two people who just happen to have a holding that is already exactly divisible by this number and you would then miss out.

Yours sincerely,

[swiftnick] 22/1/2007 21:54

gjabrj,

We now have the answer to your question:

Under the placing agreement dated 11th December 2006 entered into in connection
with the capital reorganisation, Aspen Finance Limited (in whose shareholding of
the Company Michael Stevens, the Chairman of Artisan (UK) plc, has a beneficial
interest) has today purchased 618,858 Ordinary Shares at a price of £1.30 per
Ordinary Share. Aspen Finance Limited now holds 2,422,908 Ordinary Shares,
amounting to 29.55% of the Company's issued voting share capital or 29.5% of the
issued share capital including those held as treasury stock.

Aspen's paper profit on today's transaction, based on this evening's closing bid price of 157p, is 618,858 x (157-130)p = £167,092.

[pennstreet] 22/1/2007 16:19

Thanks chedders and prallum

[prallum] 22/1/2007 16:01

Shares
(20000/6000)=3.33334

3x150 = 450 shares.

Remainder
20000-(3x6000)=2000

2000x3.25=6500p

So 450 shares plus 65 pounds.

[cheddars] 22/1/2007 15:59

PennStreet

Split is 1:40 so you have 500 new shares

[pennstreet] 22/1/2007 15:17

How has the consolidation taken effect ? I have 20k of the old shares - how many of the new ones do i get ? Thanks anyone.

[jfishy] 22/1/2007 13:17

Long term chart looks very bullish ;-)

[gjabrj] 22/1/2007 10:28

Well will Aspen declare its current shareholding?

[gjabrj] 22/1/2007 09:24

Ray

The takeover / MBO mentioned on here are peoples opinions.

Time will tell if correct or not.

[raybrown] 22/1/2007 09:16

Hi All
Have I missed something by being away, I have 50000 shares, has there been some sort of Consolidation of share's and I read there maybe a takeover/MBO happening!

[swiftnick] 22/1/2007 08:10

Opened at bid 150p offer 160p, which is equivalent to 3¾p to 4p in old money.

Disappointing to see the price slip back again.

[swiftnick] 21/1/2007 01:50

Well multiplying Friday's close by 40 would give bid 164p, offer 180p with a mid price of 172p. But I would hope to see a narrowing of the spread.

Shares go ex-div on Wednesday I think.

[steeleye] 20/1/2007 20:44

well thats half the shareholders gone, any guesses for monday morning?

[ariane] 20/1/2007 10:42

Art.view

Tettamanti's testament
Jan 20th 2007
From Economist.com

A great post-war Italian art collection for sale

RICCARDO Tettamanti was an Italian paper magnate. It wasn't until he was almost 40 that he bought his first painting. Yet within a decade he'd virtually abandoned his business to devote himself to collecting. For hours each day he would pore over catalogues, talk to dealers and visit galleries. He bought no more than five or six pictures a year at most, but he wanted each one to be a crucial example of an artist's work.

In May 1971 the Marlborough Galleria d'Arte in Rome held a show of Mark Rothko's pictures, and Tettamanti bought one.

It had been painted in 1968 shortly after Rothko finished the magnificent black murals for the Menil Chapel in Houston. He had left his wife and children, and suffered a massive aneurysm. Two years later he would kill himself. Reminiscent of a burning-red evening sky, and so clearly linked to the Menil murals, "Untitled" of 1968 is one of the most radiant examples from this dramatic late series of Rothko paintings.

Rothko had a deep influence on Alberto Burri, who was born in Città di Castello in 1915. In the late 1950s Burri began working with burlap sacking, cutting and stitching it and arranging it with a simple formality alongside abstracts of red and black acrylic. Burri had been a doctor until he was captured in North Africa during the second world war, and interned in Texas. In camp he took up painting. His early works, many of which he later destroyed, were mostly figurative landscapes. Gradually the forms within these landscapes became more and more abstract, until he began replacing them with bits of collage, especially burlap.

Jute sacking had a deep resonance for Burri. It had served as a rough canvas for his paintings in his POW camp, and there was something about it that encapsulated perfectly the atmosphere of post-war Italy, a country that could not provide enough food for its people and relied heavily on handouts. Burri's "Sacchi" series often incorporated the burlap bags that were part of this relief effort.

Burri was hugely admired by artists as diverse as Lucio Fontana and Robert Rauschenberg, and was a crucial influence on the artists of the Arte Povera movement. His "Sacchi" are as distinct as his burned "Combustione" works or his later "Cellotex" series. One, a smaller example than Tettamanti's, is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, another is in the Centre Pompidou in Paris and a third in London's' Tate Gallery.

Christie's ImagesBurri, Fontana and Piero Manzoni are Italy's three best-known and most influential post-war artists. Yet Burri's work has never achieved the prices that Fontana, for example, now enjoys. So it is interesting to hear that Christie's believes "Sacco e Rosso" (pictured left) will be bought by a private Italian buyer, and that the estimate it is posting, £1m-1.5m, is the same as that for Rothko's "Untitled".

Not that all the Tettamanti pictures are for the super-rich. As he grew older, the Italian collector liked especially to buy the work of young artists. Whatever he bought, he hung in his home on Milan's Via Borgonuovo. Nothing was put into store, and he never lent his work to travelling exhibitions. Exposed to his paintings on a daily basis for 40 years, Tettamanti had an extraordinarily well-trained eye. He was an early buyer of Julian Schnabel, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Maurizio Cattelan.

Among the most interesting pictures in the sale are those that show how figurative painting returned to fashion in the 1980s and 1990s. Stephan Balkenhol, Jiri Georg Dokoupil, Rainer Fetting, Alex Katz, Chris Ofili and Nobuyoshi Araki all have strong, memorable faces in this sale, at estimates of less than £20,000, as does the Tanzanian master, George Milanga, who died in 2005 just after his cheery burlesques featured on the cover of "African Art Now", an exhibition of masterpieces belonging to Jean Pigozzi, a Swiss-French collector, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

The largest part of the Tettamanti collection will be sold by Christie's in London on February 7th, 8th and 9th. Rothko's "Untitled" of 1968 is Lot 13; Burris'"Sacco e Rosso" is Lot 6. A further 48 lots, mostly works on paper by Italian artists, will be part of a Christie's modern and contemporary sale in Milan on May 22nd.