Our live Investing Matters Podcast Special which took place at the Master Investor Show discussing 'How undervalued is the UK stock market?', has just been released. Listen here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
The classic line : NQ Mineral's Chairman, David Lenigas, said; "This refinancing facility with ING represents the culmination of nearly a year's extensive due diligence with both the bank and Traxys.
Nearly a year of DD and a major Investment Bank did not realise they obtained security through deception? As normal citizens, we wouldn't buy a house without checking the vendor had the right to sell it.
https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/nq-minerals-usd-41-million-debt-restructuring-with-ing-bank-2020-07-16
NQ Minerals USD 41 million Debt Restructuring with ING Bank
PUBLISHED
JUL 16, 2020 6:00AM EDT
Some part on the article "ING Bank's Adrian Moroz, Director within Metals, Mining and Fertilisers, said, "The bank is pleased to partner with NQ Minerals, Traxys and the Hellyer Mine in order to provide this refinancing facility. This transaction is noteworthy in that this was achieved throughout Covid, which is a testament to the dedication of all parties involved, as well as the underlying strength of the project."
@BillClinton,
NQ also listed in US. So you may be able to send some complaint to SEC about it. I was informed by another a guy, and apparently, David Lenigas have his own telegram group , and he was pretty active in informing the members about the update on NQ, until it went into administration.
What interesting is, this guy said there was a huge dump of shares on July 14th, and if you look at the shareholder structure, it's possibly the management who has that large amount of shares.
Incredible revelations on Audley!
What is the relevant securities law on the bonds?
Under US common law, there’s a requirement that any debt subordination requires consideration to be provided. Where consideration is not provided, there are precedents for a subordination agreement to be deemed invalid irrespective of whether it was approved or not.
https://www.calt.iastate.edu/article/subordination-agreement-fails-lack-contractual-consideration
My friend who works in capital markets informs me in these cases, you would always attach a small payment upfront (cents even) to compensate affected holders to ensure it’s a valid/binding legal agreement.
So many things smell here. 1) Bondholder vote appears engineered. 2) Fiduciaries appear connected / conflicted and acting in concert 3) No consideration provided for subordination and 4) The totality of the parties actions point to premeditation / deliberate intent - a scheme if you will or the “F” word.
Trustee should be on this but appears a connected/conflicted party.
Has the Administrator appointed legal counsel to carry out discovery?
I’m screwed as a shareholder, but I think the bondholders here have a very strong case.
Strategically, legal cases are a pain in the proverbial. Perhaps,the quickest tactical resolution is bringing pain on the institutions who stand to lose the most, moral, financial or reputational.
I would argue any investment bank seen to be short changing bondolders whether by design or lack of proper due dilligence procedure may ultimately prefer to settle rather than have their very business ethos examined in court. They are supposed to be paragons of virtue, especially when European and British tax payer funds have been used multiple times to support them.
As I said earlier, I fail to see how any serious financial institution would not query the quality and ownership of any collateral offered in lieu of a large loan facility. The compliance & risk teams in banks run into the thousands. If the DD process was correctly undertaken, it would be easy to recognise the moral and ethical dilemmas that would occur, in taking over collateral without a proper and transparent vote. The reputational risk is not worth it for multi-billion Euro organisations. And if the process was crooked from within the bank, then it really does open up a can of worms for them.
I get the feeling, one is going to have something very close to or equal to libellous about Lenigas and his merry crew to goad a reaction and the legal exposure, this affair requires.
I mean if you try to take an extremely generous view and say NQ's board were in over their heads and they mistakenly double pledged the bondholders' security, it would sound like I was talking about my
8 year old niece rather than supposedly sophisticated business people.
And surely the bank when offered the security must have asked how for such an indebted company, no one else had claims on those assets, worse when they were told the bondholders had voted to lower their security, did they not ask how and why? Is that not why banks have huge compliance departments? I mean all these organisations have corporate mantras about being fair in business. Now I am not letting the board off, but as the most sophisticated investor in the room, how could the bank, think this was a fair deal that would not have ethical repercussions later? HEADLINE:Large bank takes away bondholders security without making an offer or scrutinising vote but thinks its legal. I mean think about it, you don't buy a house without checking its the vendor's to sell!
@latvianPrince, thanks for revealing these machinations, which unfortunately have a serious dose of credibility. At the time of the proposed refinancing I was carrying our DD on the bond for some investors and delayed any decision till there was some clarity. The distrubutor at the time mumbled something about first vote not having enough bodies and a need to recovene later. The weird thing is if you were ING and thinking ethically, why not make an offer to buy out bondholders who you presumably knew had mine assets as security, unless you planned a sleight of hand (even for a bank that would be low) or you were misled by the board? Double pleding security is the bane of the alternatives world.
This is what I got from my broker after they cross-checked with JSA when Reyker went bust.
"They have no record of the mention document being delivered via Crest and have never known a document to be delivered via Crest.
Furthermore, at the date of this notice was issued (in April 2020), their Crest system was not live. It was fully restored until late 2020.
Since the special administration of the custodian they have corporate action alerts (SSNs). They have no records of this document being delivered by SSN.
All post was scanned from March 2020, so they have searched through all physically received post for the 3 months around this notice. They have no record of this notice being received by post."
That's not how I read it. It could also mean that the information was sent to all middlemen, it was just that one, most or all of the middlemen didn't pass it on.
Scott is sharp and a lawyer himself, while Truva are not idiots. Unfortunately, they may be legally watertight on this one.
@Ivanhoes21,
If you didn't get it, and I didn't get it, and many of us who also in the group didn't get it.
Meaning they didn't distribute this information to all, and as far as I am concerned Bedfordrow was there when they took my money (replied to my email when I was investing), but now they didn't inform me when this occurred. This is unacceptable !
And especially the reply I got from my brokers and custodian is, they never received such information.
I don't know Johanes.
We don't know if Audley (Scott) tried to communicate and it never got through to the bond holders or they never actually tried.
That is information only Bedford Row/Audley can confirm.
@ivanhoes21,
Do you know whats the requirement to conduct this sort of voting in UK (e.g : all bondholders get invited, minimum attendance, minimum vote from attendees,etc ) ?
As far as I know, many of us didn't get any information at all about this vote.
This is interesting. Thanks
A slight correction perhaps, but I was told that the vote itself was across two rounds, the first round requiring 25% attendance and the second was basically whoever showed up. They managed to win the vote on the second round.
Everything else you have posted is new to me and appreciated.
@latvianPrince
One thing, we know for sure, none of the bondholders was informed by the Avenir as the bond registrar .
They may arrange (rigged) the voting, but if so many bondholders didn't inform about this, can this voting be considered legal and reach quorum ?
I believe there are so many other parties involved in this scam, from the registrar, trustees, SPV,etc.
Two Family Offices that bought heavily discounted Audley Bonds were Kiwoz and Maui Capital out of New Zealand. Walter Doyles lifelong friend, Mr. James Dean brokered the deal with both these Family Offices to not only provide the original debt-funding required by Doyle/NQ to purchase Hellyer, but to also buy into the Audley Bond at the ‘special’ discounted price. For this, Mr. James Dean was generously rewarded by being granted a disproportionate production royalty over Hellyer which netted him about $8 million a year.
Today, James Dean remains a very active member of the Doyle Cabal, and is the current Doyle ‘mouthpiece’ in London. No one admits to knowing where Doyle is and Scott Levy is hiding from us bond holders, only coming out to communicate with Doyle, Dean and the Administrator.
Many bond holders are wondering how the senior security was subordinated to 3rd place. Well, the method was cooked up by Scott Levy, Walter Doyle and James Dean. James Dean was the key person in this as he was tasked with, and again, amply rewarded, getting proxies from the two New Zealand funds, Kiwoz and Maui, to vote at a rigged meeting. No-one outside a very small group was made aware by Bedford Row Capital/Audley of the Bond holders meeting. This was deliberate so that the outcome of the vote of the few bond holders who were ‘invited’ could be easily controlled (rigged). In effect 25% of the bondholders needed to be represented at the meeting of which 75% needed to vote “YES” to the subordination. Mr. James Dean with his proxies in hand was THE key person in ensuring that the vote was passed. That’s how Levy, Doyle and Dean cooked the bond holders meeting with only insiders even being aware of the meeting.
Ordinary bond holders like us were never informed of this meeting, why??? because there was no intent to let the majority of bond holders know anything as it may have delayed USD55 million in debt financing that was being secured and it could have stopped the Doyle gravy train! So we ended up being screwed by Bedford Row/Scott Levy/James Dean and the Doyle Cabal!
Now we hear that these very same guys are working up a New Deal to lessen the ‘heat’ on both Levy and Doyle. Begbies have no interest in investigating criminal intent and like all Administrators all they want is money money money with total disregard for any of the creditors.