Member Info for HeadInTheSand

Let me charitably educate the utterly clueless Mystic Meg Onetomany with some public record facts (you know, those things he's virulently allergic to).

He was asked "Is Jonathan Tidswell Pretorius a suitable person to be running a publicly owned company?" and claimed that, as he'd never met the man, he wouldn't know.

You don'tneed to have met him - he's already been thrown off the ANGS board once. Here's an entirely factual and verifiable news story about the last time JTP was on the ANGS board and what happened then.

"The former chair of Angus Energy breached the share dealing code and will not retake his place on the board, the company has announced.

Jonathan Tidswell-Pretorius resigned on 6 July 2018 after transferring his entire stake of 39 million shares in Angus Energy to America 2030 Capital Ltd, for “nil consideration”. The deal was part of loan negotiations.

At the time, Companies House showed that America 2030 Capital Ltd was less than six months old, with one officer, a 20-year-old Hungarian living in Poland.

Within two days of the transfer, America 2030 Capital Ltd began selling Mr Tidswell- Pretorius’s shares, eventually off-loading about 16 million. At the time, the share price was about 6p and an Angus interim statement said Mr Tidswell Pretorius still held his entire stake.

In a statement to investors yesterday (6 March 2019), Angus Energy, which has three oil sites in southern England, said it had concluded an investigation into the affair. It said:

“Whilst the Board expresses sympathy for Mr. Tidswell-Pretorius’ legal position, the investigation has confirmed that the Company’s share dealing code was not complied with and accordingly for clarification Mr. Tidswell-Pretorius will not be reinstated to the Board but remains the Group’s non-board director of operations.”

The statement also reveals that a court injunction stopped America 2030 Capital Ltd from selling any more shares and an agreement returned 23 million unsold shares to Mr Pretorius."

Yep, this (re-)appointment sounds like a dream match...

The first half of that statement is true, but the second is merely a hopeless wish. Unless it means "future growth... of its already unsupportable debt mountain".

"...and has set Angus on the course of future growth"... of debt, no doubt.

...aaaand the world's worst Mystic Meg is back, desperately continuing to try to polish the unpolishable.

"Anything changed"? Yes, plenty.

The CEO has hightailed it away from this steaming heap of manure, presumably hoping that not too much stench will follow him.

The company has told us it's looking to reappoint to its board someone who was kicked off that very board for breaching share trading rules. To remind you, in 2018 JTP "accidentally" transferred ownership of his 39 million ANGS shares free of charge to a newly formed 2 bit company, which gleefully and immediately sold 16 million of them and trashed the then SP, before being stopped from selling any more by an injunction.

Yep, everything's just rosy.

Thanks TopShot - though as I am sure you're more than aware, evaluating ANGS has only ever needed looking at publicly available facts, so I can't claim to be any sort of investigative journalist.

I agree 100% - if the ongoing ANGS farce was part of a novel, rather than part of reality, literally everyone would criticise it for being ridiculously, wildly and unbelievably far-fetched.

...except sadly, it's not some crazed fever dream. It's all really happening.

At least it wasn't Lenigas...

...wait, the post of "interim" CEO is still available.

Tidswell, the man who was directly responsible for the trashing of the ANGS SP in 2018 by "giving" free of charge his entire 39 million shareholding to a newly-formed 2 bit company called America 2030 Capital Ltd, which promptly sold 16 million of those, before stopped by a court injunction? He was thrown off the board for that.

This is like putting Harold Shipman in charge of a care home...

Dear oh dear. The CEO departs with unseemly haste - so much so that no replacement was teed up and waiting in the wings. Frankly, it's a good thing that the share is suspended, because this revelation would have knocked the SP nastily downwards.

Presumably RH was very keen not to be associated any longer with whatever's going on behind the curtains at ANGS (with the clever money on that being a drastically painful reaming by Trafigura as part of the attempted "debt resculpture"). One has to comment that, if the likes of Mystic Meg Onetomany and the Ocebot were to be given the slightest credence, it'd be very curious that Mr Herbert was so eager to jump ship, just as ANGS is (according to the eternal and frantic pompom wavers at least) on the point of transformative and multi-bag greatness.

But they then resurrect Tidswell-Pretorius? Seriously??? The man who "accidentally" lent his millions of ANGS shares to some 20-something Eastern European girl to be traded as wished? You could NOT make this up. This from a news article at the time:-

"The former chair of Angus Energy breached the share dealing code and will not retake his place on the board, the company has announced.

Jonathan Tidswell-Pretorius resigned on 6 July 2018 after transferring his entire stake of 39 million shares in Angus Energy to America 2030 Capital Ltd, for “nil consideration”. The deal was part of loan negotiations.

At the time, Companies House showed that America 2030 Capital Ltd was less than six months old, with one officer, a 20-year-old Hungarian living in Poland.

Within two days of the transfer, America 2030 Capital Ltd began selling Mr Tidswell- Pretorius’s shares, eventually off-loading about 16 million. At the time, the share price was about 6p and an Angus interim statement said Mr Tidswell Pretorius still held his entire stake.

In a statement to investors yesterday (6 March 2019), Angus Energy, which has three oil sites in southern England, said it had concluded an investigation into the affair. It said:

“Whilst the Board expresses sympathy for Mr. Tidswell-Pretorius’ legal position, the investigation has confirmed that the Company’s share dealing code was not complied with and accordingly for clarification Mr. Tidswell-Pretorius will not be reinstated to the Board but remains the Group’s non-board director of operations.”

The statement also reveals that a court injunction stopped America 2030 Capital Ltd from selling any more shares and an agreement returned 23 million unsold shares to Mr Pretorius."

...and this is who the company are considering re-appointing? See that barrel? Hear that scraping sound?

Whatever next? David Lenigas for CEO? Steve Sanderson for Director of Wealth Creation? You have to hand it to ANGS... it never fails to disappoint.

Trombone, one would have thought that those genuinely invested - plus anyone else genuinely interested to see how this eventually all pans out - would be completely focussed in on discussing and sharing opinions on subjects directly involving the company and its CEO, rather than on obsessively posting assumptions and opinions about other posters.

And the supposed NDAs have made a guest reappearance in this latest update, but this time "covering other aspects of these arrangements."

One has to ask... what's the point? Amit has now specifically named both alleged companies involved, he already revealed the alleged worth of these deals ages ago and he already stated the alleged payment methodology an equally long time ago.

What more is there of the slightest relevance to anybody? Curiouser and curiouser.

And the drip... drip... drip of the Ben Haim Chinese water torture continues.

When the ball is full of ever more obvious holes, play the man is all they have left to do...

Just another shill. They've always been ten a penny on CTAG.

C'est la vie.

A brand new ID (though without doubt not a brand new poster) pops up here to call someone else a "keyboard warrior"... irony, anyone?

If people want to hope that this comes good, regardless of the ever-growing weight of counter evidence, that is of course entirely up to them. The main problem with the perma-toxicity of this bard - and from the get-go actually - has been that many of those waving the pompoms for Amit and CTAG have invariably chosen the sole strategy of heaping abuse on those with a less positive viewpoint. That goes all the way back to the likes of DavidGreece and continues at least in part to this day.

That's of course a standard shill tactic - if the ball's looking ever more obviously full of holes, then play the man, not the ball. A bit banal in my book - but hey, each to their own.

Wouldn't it be great if this just concluded, whether one way or the other. The seemingly ever-ongoing drip... drip... drip of what is effectively Amit'd version of Chinese water torture just screams out for a final resolution.

BP, I take the point, but those reports were a) muddied by hedge shenanigans and b) covered a period with significantly higher gas prices.

Keeping it brutally simple We know how much sellable stuff their only producing asset is currently putting out... and generously, that's averaging at 1.33m therms a month. Okay sure, you could bump the estimated annual revenue figures up a little with condensate sales and also whatever ANGS gets for the trickle of oil from elsewhere - but that's all. It is definitely not now a company with £20m sales a year.

I'd be interested in how much Saltfleetby costs to run a year with normal (i.e. no unforeseen disasters) opex.

"Production variability during the first quarter of 2025, before the booster compressor was commissioned, has resulted in the first principal repayment of £1.25 million being deferred".

This isn't difficult to understand at all, if you just concentrate on a few fully evidenced facts.

1. ANGS has to date defaulted on the very first quarterly principal repayment to Trafigura (that was £1.25m, due in March this year).

2. ANGS confirmed this and the reason why in its RNS of May 7th:

"Production variability during the first quarter of 2025, before the booster compressor was commissioned, has resulted in the first principal repayment of £1.25 million".

On that subject, it's worth noting that, **after** the booster compressor got installed, daily production figures are no higher than those achieved without it in Q1.

3. The overall amount due to Trafigura on its £20m amortising loan over the four years from Mar 25, prior to any debt "resculpting" is just over £27m (the £20m principal, plus accrued interest of £7m over the 5 year term at a rate of SONIA + 8%). That's around £1.69m per quarter, every quarter for 16 quarters.

4. Being generous, ANGS is averaging around 0.12 mcm per day (for info in June the average is currently 0.117). 0.12mcm/day = 3.6mcm/month = 1.33m therms a month.

5. Let's forget hedges entirely. Say ANGS can currently sell all its gas at open market pricing of 90p. That gives a revenue (NB revenue, not profit| of £1.2m per month. Take off the 8% royalty and you get a revenue of £1.1m per month or £13.2m per annum.

So... £13.2m p.a. minus finance costs of £6.75m p.a = £6.45m left to pay all yearly field and back office opex, plus fund any further required capex, plus service any other debts (eg Paul Forrest's remaining £1.88m).

Feel free to pop in your own figures.

In all honesty, nothing makes much sense here.

Amit's certainly made numerous wildly inaccurate statements before now, including some downright falsehoods - but if one is to discount his lengthy track record for veracity and accuracy, who knows?

I agree with Moxie - I think a final conclusion to this incredibly long-running soap opera is a lot nearer - and if this only results in closure, rather than a payout, that in itself has at least some sort of value.

Bottom line? Nothing about this makes any sense. Which makes it more fascinating to see how this all turns out.

Has Amit played a blinder? Well... he's certainly done well if he's finally managed to monetise CTAG assets by flogging them to various Johnsons. He's certainly not been "telling the truth all along" (as any long-term follower of Cloudtag since listing will be more than aware, because he's come out with numerous complete porkies, both while CTAG was listed and post-delisting too.

However and of course, the only thing of any importance is - has he been telling the truth this year? I guess we'll find out relatively shortly.

"One of two things is going on here. Either the guy is a crazed and cruel lunatic or CTAG holders are finally going to be rewarded."

Without giving odds on either of those two outcomes, I'd agree that it's now a completely binary situation. I doubt that J&J would care much about being named if it isn't true - as Spikey says, there's hardly grounds for them to take action.

However I also believe that this announcement does finally bring the possibility of closure - one way or the other - much closer. Things should indeed now be fairly easy to check = and hopefully they're a lot more true than airstrips in the jungle, being ranged in Target, Hugh Risebrow and that Chicago bank..

Delusional sociopathic conman? Or a payout for holders at last? Hopefully now not too much longer to find out which way the cookie crumbles.

Trombone, you're very judgemental for someone who (like everyone else) has no clue on who other posters actually are or what they're about. A tad arrogant, no? I'd have thought it a whole lot more rational to play the ball, not the man, but each to their own, I suppose.

This may surprise you, but ideally I would genuinely love my admittedly solidly negative opinion on Amit and Cloudtag to be proven entirely wrong - if only for the sake of genuine and very long-suffering shareholders (well, at least the rational and courteous ones - and if that were to benefit other characters actually holding shares as it inevitably would, that'd be fine).

Failing that, if this is all an utterly contemptible hoax, I would dearly love to see Amit get his come-uppance to the maximum extent possible, whether legal, financial, reputational or any/all of these.

(I'd actually like both of the above to occur, because Amit does not deserve a free ride even if this does come off after his behaviour , deceptions and actions over the entirety of actually the last 12+ years, but I suspect that'd be impossible).

PS if you *honestly* believe that the opinions of any poster here about any other poster, whether those opinions be positive or negative, have any value or effect at all, you need to have a long hard word with yourself. Nobody has a clue about who anyone else is - so how can it possibly matter?

Which is why I'm prone to point out - this is a bulletin board for discussions about Cloudtag.

Trombone, my reasons for maintaining an interest in CTAG and commenting here are simple.

Back in the day, I did invest in CTAG, held on for a reasonable time, then spotted what I believed to be an increasing number of warning signs and so got out with a not hugely significant loss before the share delisted.

Not that I need any reason to comment, nor any need to justify myself to your satisfaction, but I am interested in finding out one way or another whether I was right and whether my ever-increasing evidence-based certainty that this was a quite deliberately maintained scam turns out also to be correct.

Perhaps you'd like to be equally candid and let the board know why you're such an apologist for Amit?