Member Info for adzy2k11

MrD - you’ll get closure in 7 more weeks, I guess. But if I was you I would try accept the loss now, and try deal with it over the weeks months ahead. If you get anything back then great, but know that there’s sadly less than 1% chance of that happening at this point ...

The irony is that he’s the half brother of the guy who played a crook in the hit-series Billions... this story just gets more ridiculous by the day

William Russell, the Lord Mayor of London, has the job of promoting the City overseas, which includes meeting business leaders

William Russell, the lord mayor of London, has the job of promoting the City overseas, which includes meeting business leaders

The lord mayor of London was a guest of honour at a dinner hosted by the tycoon embroiled in a suspected fraud scandal at NMC Health a month after accounting concerns were first raised.

William Russell, the lord mayor, and Patrick Moody, the British ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, attended the event hosted by Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty at Catch, a restaurant in Abu Dhabi, in January, about a month after Muddy Waters had published a critical report on NMC.

The American short-seller raised accounting and governance concerns about NMC, a FTSE 100 company that last week was placed in administration.

In the scandal that followed the report, there were revelations of spiralling debts, the collapse and suspension of shares in NMC and an investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, which applied to the High Court to appoint Alvarez & Marsal as administrator to NMC, also has initiated criminal legal proceedings with the attorney-general in Abu Dhabi against several unnamed individuals in relation to the healthcare group.

The hospitality has not been disclosed by the lord mayor on his register of interests, which had been due to be updated by the end of March but now will be done by the end of this month because of the impact of Covid-19.

The lord mayor is an international ambassador for the financial and professional services sector. Mr Russell, whose half-brother is Damian Lewis, the actor, became the 692nd Lord Mayor in November.

He was photographed at the dinner with Mr Shetty, 77, and Binay, his son, who is chief executive of BRS Ventures, his investment holding company, and is a former chief operating officer of NMC.

Mr Russell is understood to have been aware of the controversy surrounding NMC, but the British embassy is said to have given the event the go-ahead. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for Mr Russell said: “The lord mayor visited Abu Dhabi in January to strengthen trade and investment ties with the UK. As part of a wide-ranging programme, he delivered a keynote speech at the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Forum and met with several firms and investors. The lord mayor also joined British embassy officials in attending a dinner hosted by BRS Ventures.”

“That's not what the administrators are alluding to. When they talk about looking to equity markets that means working with exisiting shareholders”

Are you sure? Both the FT article I posted yday and The Times article on Sunday suggest delisting, or new co. ... both those option wipe out existing shareholders. Have you got evidence to suggest otherwise?

FT - The newly overhauled board of NMC is considering delisting the company, according to a person familiar with the situation, which would remove costs and complexity. ADCB had previously highlighted the “intrinsic value” of the listing as a means to potentially raise capital, according to documents filed ahead of the administration.

Times - Should NMC go to the market, it is unlikely that its existing equity would be maintained and trading resumed. Instead, it is more likely that new equity would be issued out of a “new co” listed entity.

Yeah you’re probs right, what are lse rules when you’ve stolen $4.4bn!

The default would have shown up atleast through the finance team, and they probably hid this from the board. It just keeps getting worse.

P.s. Remit2India, I know ha!

Rastuss - do you know if being in default on Feb 2nd and failing to disclose to the market Is considered market abuse? How did they manage to avoid telling us?

it says 8 weeks? Do you mean 20 May?

80% recovered, with 64% fully paid back, that's quite incredible, even though it took a decade to get it back.

They would just sell his shares off-market, like the buttis did with their 9%

Demark - I’m not saying Shetty wasn’t part of the fraud, I’m saying it’s not his job to inform the market of the default. That rests with IR and management

It wouldn’t have been Shetty but Prasanth and the board who would have to let the market know

ADR up to $15, I wonder why Rastuss has gone so quiet. Any explanation for this?

MrD - I know, I don’t get how they could just not disclose this default from the market. Isn’t that in of itself market abuse?! It’s surely considered material information. This just gets more and more shocking.

#3 is most important and would indicate they are pulling back on their idea of keeping the listing - I.e. going ahead with shareholder wipeout.

Takeaways:

1) NMC hid from shareholders that the company defaulted on 2 February
2) Shetty hid his 10.9m share sale in early Feb
3) administrators are now thinking about delisting
4) FAB has no debt

FAB has since stated that it has reduced its debt exposure to NMC to zero while other lenders have been left with sizeable loans outstanding to the largest private healthcare provider in the UAE.

“Other creditors to NMC won’t be thrilled about this, that’s for sure,” said one banker.

NMC owes almost $1bn to Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, which last week successfully applied to place the London-listed firm into administration in the UK.

On Tuesday the group’s administrators Alvarez & Marsal said NMC had asked ADCB to lead a committee of creditors, including Barclays and Standard Chartered, to co-ordinate between the company and lenders. ADCB has pledged to make working capital facilities available to the group to allow it to provide critical healthcare as the UAE battles coronavirus.

The newly overhauled board of NMC is considering delisting the company, according to a person familiar with the situation, which would remove costs and complexity. ADCB had previously highlighted the “intrinsic value” of the listing as a means to potentially raise capital, according to documents filed ahead of the administration.

FAB, NMC and Mr Shetty declined to comment.

The period following the February sell-off was marked by confusion and uncertainty over the ownership of the shares owned by major investors including Mr Shetty and his Emirati partners, as well as the size of NMC’s debt.

Regulatory filings revealed an array of previously undisclosed share pledges and trading in NMC was suspended on the London Stock Exchange in late February after the group began a probe into off-balance sheet financing.

Its problems worsened in March when an internal review carried out by former FBI director Louis Freeh revealed additional undisclosed borrowing as it admitted there was evidence of suspected fraud. NMC’s net debt has ballooned to $6.6bn, several times higher than previously reported.

NMC Health’s default on a payment owed to Abu Dhabi’s biggest bank was a trigger for a sharp sell-off in February at the troubled healthcare group, which went into administration last week.

First Abu Dhabi Bank’s demand for an immediate repayment of $20m heaped further pressure on the Middle East-focused group, whose finances have been under scrutiny since an attack by US shortseller Muddy Waters last year.

FAB wrote on February 3 to several NMC operating companies and the group’s Indian founder BR Shetty — all guarantors on a 2018 loan made by the bank to the group — to inform them of non-payment of around $20m in instalments in the second half of January by its main holding company, NMC Healthcare, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.

The bank, the largest lender in the UAE, demanded the immediate payment as the hospital operator was struggling to raise funds to meet its February payroll obligations on time.

On the same day, state-backed FAB started to sell $145m of shares held in the name of Mr Shetty’s investment company BRS International Holdings.

Over the next four days FAB sold 10.9m NMC shares held by BRS, the disposal accounting for a significant portion of the volume of the group’s stock sold during that week with the sell-off wiping a third off NMC’s share price.

NMC said on February 4 that it knew of “no specific reason for the fall”. The group disclosed FAB’s share sales on February 18. Mr Shetty had asked for clarification from the bank to ascertain the legal basis of the transactions, but no response had been forthcoming, the disclosure said.

Hey Deos,
No worries at all, even though I made good money overall trading NMC and yes got slaughtered here for being short/negative, I do hate what’s happened to PIs, and really feel for you and others who have lost large sums of money on this. I hope something magical happens and you do get something back. Please just don’t ever invest all your money into one stock again, it’s never worth the risk no matter how good the company.

In terms of other places to make money right now, as you (and mrD) might have followed I was calling for the market bottom in mid-March. I was about a week too early but I have made some nice profits in the move up since and am taking profits today. I think we will get a W-shape recovery so you have to be patient and wait for us to hopefully get the next dip - that will be the one to buy into. Alternatively might be worth shorting the US market from these levels looking for a retest of the March lows. I personally will wait for the next dip to buy back into and not short.

My mistake, current short interest for NMHLY is showing 29,841 as of April 2020. Given the volume has been >400k in both of the last two days we can safely rule out that short covering IS NOT the reason for the recent rise.

And I would add even if you can technically short an OTC, it’s very unlikely that: 1) you’d find a broker to offer you this; and 2) that it would make economic sense given the likely huge margin requirements.

In any case for NMHLY it shows no short interest... so Rastuss your theory on short covering being the reason for the recent rise is probably inaccurate and misleading. Would you agree?

Rastuss - I think you’re missing the point of my question/comment. The ADR is not exchange-listed, it trades over the counter only. Hence my question is how do you short an OTC instrument? Of course a regular ADR can probably be shorted in the traditional sense.

And I didn’t say I believed it had gone up due to “inside information” - I have no idea why it’s going up, but it is!

Like I said I just think it’s pointless speculating and creating fictitious ideas that make little sense to justify one’s thoughts