AGM18 Jun 2019 16:36
I attended the AGM today along with a number of other share holders. Hopefully they will all chip in with their 'two pennyworth' at some stage.
Some first thoughts.
The mood was obviously pretty buoyant considering the Ghana port news this morning. PF read out the AGM statement. TB was the MC and ran through the agenda efficiently. Some questions were asked and answered along the way re. accounts, the bad debt they are chasing, the apparent increase in the BODs' wages.
In short, the debt they are chasing is from a long time ago. It was written off, now the client needs/wants to do some fresh business so they want to collect the debt first before doing any fresh business. Personally,I suspect they will do a deal and get money up front to do any fresh work(think it might be an airport but not sure).
For accountancy purposes the options have to go into the accounts. They are all getting paid the same as they have been for years.
There was a decent amount of time for Q&A followed by chitchat over some food and drinks.
They were quizzed on why they haven't bought loads of stock, particularly TB, who has bought nothing I believe. He defended himself robustly with the line that he is on the same wage as he has had from when he was a consultant, then a NED, then Chairman and now Executive Chairman........Personally, I think he should still invest some money, particularly now, following this great new contract........they are in an open period so hopefully somebody will show some faith. The whole board has besides Tony Baldry...about time me thinks.
Iran contract is really on hold FTTB, they are trying to find some ways to monetise it in some way...it's worth re reading the latest statements re. Iran..this is kind of hinted at.
Africa contract could happen any time, just got to wait for the client to sort themselves out.
There are multiple contracts in the offing.
Ghana is relatively new. Even though it is a port contract it did not come through Sutcliffe's contacts etc. Now Sutcliffe is off the main board he is more actively trying to drive business. He is always on the road with his various business interests.
People should really get googling this new port, it is absolutely state of the art. The present port does 850k containers a year but can only take boats with 4/5000 containers. This new one is bigger and deeper and can take 20 000 container boats. It has two berths up and running, all the infrastructure is in place. All the scanning equipment needed for WSG to do their contract is in place...........no significant capital outlay. The first big boat arrives on the 28th. They will man one of the scanning machines to process the containers...it is a proper ramp up trial to find and iron out any wrinkles. They have firm letters of commitment, they are dealing with a proper large company, no one else is involved, they have to get this up and running. The board(and me) are v confident that they will sort out the fine detail (the
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