Member Info for BrendonButter

tw goes on to say; latest ************* article by tw as published today:

union jack oil (ujo), the company that bought an eighty grand porsche for the gimp who runs its x account, spent shareholders cash on spooks to troll its own shareholders and journalists including me, and where the board troughs salaries and expenses on an industrial scale needs to hold its agm in the summer. the company has signed up to the qca best practice guide which means that all directors should be up for reelection. the chances of it actually doing that? nil.

former director craig howie now owns 9.2% far more than the entire current board. howie claims to have institutional investors on side and is now reaching out to private investors, who have ignored all my numerous warnings about this dog because they knew better than old tw, to get on board too.

for howie plans to submit members resolutions to the gm to sack the entire board. i reckon that, even with higher oil prices, union jack is a lost cause but certainly under the current leadership it is toast. so those owning shares should throw a “hail mary pass” and back howie. he cannot be worse than the ageing troughers now running the company into the ground.

if you are a shareholder and wish to back howie or ask him questions you can do so by emailing him at craig_voting @ yahoo . com

@ yahoo . com

it's **********

for some reason, the lse system blocked out the full details of mr howie's contact email address. for clarity, it is craig_voting**********.

i swapped details with a fellow lth a couple of agms ago. he contacted me this morning to discuss the current situation with ujo's bod and explained that he has been in direct contact with craig howie to offer his support. he has had sight of mr howie's open letter and says he is happy for it to be shared with the wider shareholder base. so here goes .....

"i think it’s now fair to assume that i’m hoping to see some much-needed changes to board composition and company strategy following the agm in june.

i have it on good authority that the executive chairman (fearing the inevitable) is now attempting to avoid june’s annual re-election process – which i’m sure is a clear and present danger despite ujo’s adoption of the qca code last year.

i’ll therefore be proposing members’ resolutions to force the entire board to stand for re-election, and am actively working with my broker and custodian to ensure that these are properly served over the coming days.

in my opinion, ujo has a particularly entrenched, dysfunctional, excessively remunerated and elderly board which has rinsed the company to death, has left essential cost reductions far too late and (with v few shares themselves) seems to remain focused on self-preservation and lining their own pockets.

institutional credibility has been trashed and corporate governance remains exceptionally poor.

however, if my objectives (including a much-improved approach to governance and investor relations) can be achieved, i’m confident that financial stability and a return to profitability are very much within reach – particularly at prevailing oil prices.

my hope is that ujo then becomes an excellent platform for a complementary, value-accretive deal with institutional support on both sides of the atlantic.

with best wishes

craig "

my fellow shareholder, who does not wish to be named, has advised that craig has set up an email address (craig_voting**********) through which ordinary shareholders can contact him directly to if they wish to support him in his endeavours and, if so, how they can do so, especially if their shares are held via one of the main platforms (hl, ii, barclays etc). i will certainly be getting in touch and i suggest as many of you as possible do the same. make your vote count.

The question …… I posed in my April 6th post was “Has Craig Howie really gone away?” His open letter, outed by TW, tells us clearly that he has not.

Mr Howie, it seems, is not going anywhere, and he has now made clear his intention to apply the strength that comes with his significant shareholding to remove the current BoD at the earliest possible opportunity.

We can all rest assured though, that while all this outside noise is going on, Bramhill will be working as hard as he possibly can to turn things around. Unfortunately, his efforts will not be directed at turning things around for the company and/or for us shareholders, but rather it will be entirely focussed on turning the current situation around for himself. You can be certain he will pull every lever available to him to try and keep himself in the position that enables him to continue draining as much of UJO’s cash as possible into his own pockets, for as long as possible, until the lights inevitably go out and shareholders are inevitably left with nothing.

Bramhill stopped thinking about shareholders a very long time ago. Well, he’s having to think about them now. He and the other vampires who have sucked the company dry to the point of it being on life support, have been put on notice.

I don’t believe Craig Howie would have risked his own money to further strengthen his position without having done his research in terms of the support he can likely count on from other shareholders. In the unlikely event that you read this message board Craig; I can tell you that you have mine. I will be voting to remove Bramhill and others from the current board whenever the next opportunity presents itself, and I would urge as many other shareholders as possible to do the same.

Do we really think a most likely temporary 20% increase in the price of oil and/or, the still very speculative possibility of West Newton ever delivering anything at all, is responsible for a 58% increase in UJO’s market cap. Regardless of what’s happening in the middle east, the fundamentals here have not changed. At current production levels, of which UJO benefits from only a limited share, and given that the vast majority of surplus income continues to be consumed by DB and his clique, a 20% increase in the price of oil hardly makes a dent in the Company’s bottom line. Certainly not enough to warrant an almost 60% increase in the SP.

Perhaps then, there is something else going on. Perhaps the market knows something we don’t. Why has a market, which for so long all but washed its hands of UJO, knowing its current leaders continue bleed it dry at every opportunity, potentially had a change of heart. Perhaps the market sees a different, brighter, more shareholder focused future on the horizon for UJO. Is it really just the 'temporary' spike in O&G prices?? Has Craig Howie really just gone away??

One of the first things a new board could do, if DB & co are eventually ousted, is suspend payment of any compensation packages for the outgoing directors until a full internal audit is carried out of the Company’s finances and, if there is any evidence at all, of the ‘misuse of Company funds’ (e.g. payment of unwarranted personal expenses, personal use of company assets [vehicles, property], paying excessive consultancy fees to directors or associates, allowing company funds to be wasted or misappropriated through lack of oversight), then action could be taken to recover all misused funds from those who have received and/or benefitted from them. Also, if such evidence is found, then for the guilty, it would represent a breach of their legal obligations and fiduciary duties, therefore potentially making any contractual compensation package null & void.

I didn’t mean to imply that Mr Howie is naïve. Perhaps he was made promises that didn’t materialise, who knows. I completely agree that he has plenty of experience in the O&G world and will no doubt have plenty of professional advisers to call upon, whether they are installed at board level, or retained in some other capacity. What I would hope however, is that Mr Howie will not be paying himself, or anyone else for that matter, a six-figure salary, with anything above a reasonable basic salary, only becoming due on the production of real tangible returns for long term shareholders. We need to wait and see what resolutions are put forward, and then be sure to attend any meeting, so wider shareholders’ views about salaries bonuses etc are listened to, before resolutions are passed. New snouts in the same trough; … possibly so. But I can’t imagine there will be as many snouts, or that the pigs will be anywhere close to as greedy as the current drove.

If Mr Howie can remove the current board, stabilise the Company, tighten up its corporate governance and, significantly reduce costs, there is a chance the share price might respond accordingly, and he might be able to get his money back. But this can only be good for us other shareholders too who, like me, are heavily under water (in my case hundreds of thousands). If there’s a chance we might get a little something back, even if its not everything we’ve lost, surely we would take that chance rather than have the absolute certainty, if the current lot stay in charge, of losing everything.

If Mr Howie becomes successful in his endeavours to force a vote on the removal of the current BoD, which I believe he will be eventually, I urge you to vote with him for your own good, and for the good of the Company.

This is an incredibly important / pivotal time for our Company, and all investors should be aware of what is at stake.

If David, Joe, Graham & co are allowed to remain on the board, they will continue to rape the business of it’s cash reserves with no consideration at all for shareholders, who will, in relatively short order (less than 12 months I estimate), lose everything. You can be certain that you will get nothing back from your investment if they stay in place. Once the Company has depleted its cash reserves into the pockets of the current BoD, and their hangers on, the only thing left will be its assets. Rest assured, there will be no takers, of any real note, for a future placing while the current BoD remain at the helm. The assets will be sold off at basement prices (probably to their mates), and the proceeds will again end up in the pockets of the directors as they continue taking their exorbitant wages whilst managing the business into insolvency. There will be nothing left for us.

It is my belief that Craig Howie invested heavily into the Company based on the usual blarney, about the Company’s glowing prospects, that David has pumped out time & time again over many years to attract other unwitting investors, me included. Perhaps Craig ought to have thought twice, given his close association with the Company over the past 2 years but, as many of us know to our cost, David can be very persuasive. However, having subsequently been appointed as a director, I believe Craig has had his eyes truly opened to the reality of how the current BoD really operates. As a seasoned corporate professional, he will have no doubt been shocked to have seen at close quarters, the complete absence of any real corporate governance and the sheer greed of the directors, who mostly do nothing, and, worst of all, the total contempt for shareholders. I believe that Craig was likely instrumental in John Americanos being appointed as a director, with his aim being to try and bring some more professionalism, and possibly more oversight, onto the board. Sadly, it seems that Mr Howie’s efforts to try and change things from within, were roundly rejected by David and his cronies, and this has ultimately led to his removal from the board.

Personally, I say “fair play” to Mr Howie for not leaving it there. It seems he is determined to follow through on his objective of cleaning up this Company and ridding it of the current crop of directors who are bleeding it dry. He has clearly put his money where his mouth is in trying to achieve this objective. Yes, there will no doubt be a degree of self interest in the action he is taking. Prior to his most recent investments, Mr Howie had already invested a significant sum of his own money, which he, like me, knows he will never get back if David and co are allowed to keep pocketing their salaries as they manage the Company into oblivion. That, it seems to me, is the current BoD’s retirement plan.