Member Info for horace678

The Dods shares were undervalued last time I looked. A holding of 14 million isn't all that much still. Presumably Sasqua see it as a good investment.

That's what I keep saying! Ashcroft has divested his other Caribbean interests into WIHL thereby leaving the Belize Bank as a bank "in a box". It's ready to go! Instead of selling off, however, maybe the bank will be nationalised.

I told a friend to buy in January 2009 when the price was 26p. He sold out at 200p and now look where the price is. Well, as long as we make *some* money, and it's more than we get in the bank, then we should be happy. Incidentally, I sold a few IPEL today to top up on BCB as one must know when to take profits - things can't carry on going up forever.

Some of us have been waiting since the olden days of Carlisle Holdings which became Carlisle Group and Corporate Services Group, so we are finally recouping our losses.

Yes I am certain that Ashcroft will sell the company, as that is his typical plan. BTW, the NAV of the company is £133.5m as compared to a market cap of £186m. Not particularly auspicious, but I work on a rule of thumb of the company ultimately being worth twice the NAV (as with OneSource in 2007) which would point to a sell-off share price of about £6.

Another point is that the higher the share price goes, the smaller % amount the dividend is worthi, i.e. if the share price is 400p, the % is less than if the share price is 350p.

Unlike some other Ashcroft shares (BCB and WIHL) which are very undervalued, the share price is about the same as the NAV. I think IPEL could ultimately be worth about twice the present share price. As you know, my money for multiple gains is on BCB...vtw, is it the case that we could buy IPEL shares on 1st April (the day before the recording date) get the special dividend on 10 April and then sell our shares on 3rd April, or have I misunderstood?

The shares ticked up slightly yesterday, but Ashcroft *likes it* that the market misses this. Meanwhile, see my comments entitled "My thoughts" in the thread below.

I meant "73p" per share.

Yes, at the current exchange rate, the NAV would be equivalent to around 73 per share.

Wonder if anyone bothered reading my analysis about BCB Holdings over at that share?

Do you know how huge the special dividend is due to be?

Wonder if it's got anything to do with Lord Ashcroft's interest in military heroes and decorations.

I have a very small holding in DODS. If the shares doubled it wouldn't make much difference to my holding's value

Meanwhile, I wonder if anyone has comments about my posting over at BCB which I made recently.

WIHL is also massively undervalued and is worth investing in, but I think it will take much longer before we see a return on our investment - perhaps 10 years. My hunch is that BCB Holdings is where our money should be...

6. Cheryl Jones has experience of selling companies: Cheryl Jones was the architect of the sale of OneSource to ABM in 2007 when the shares rose six times and I see this as being the precedent for the potential sale of BCB to an American bank. At the time of the demerger in October 2011, Ms Jones was appointed non-executive Chairman of BCB Holdings and my feeling is that she has taken the helm to manage a sale. Significantly, she stood down as Chairman of Impellam in November 2012, hopefully freeing up time so that she can concentrate on BCB. 7. Ashcroft money stored in WIHL (British Caribbean Bank): Ashcroft now has two banks in the Caribbean - Belize Bank and British Caribbean Bank. If you read the literature for Shellshock and Shellproof, the money behind these shell companies is stored in the British Caribbean Bank (WIHL), a further indication that WIHL is the new "mothership" and that the Belize Bank is being marginalised. 8. Price of the shares should be much higher: Before it was sold off, OneSource was trading at around a third of the Net Asset Value, as with BCB Holdings today. Ashcroft likes to lie low, keep publicity to a minimum and eventually have the "last laugh". The sale of OneSource at a multiple of the market price had its distant origins in the fall of the share price of its predecessor Carlisle Holdings in 1999 when Ashcroft had his reputation tarnished by the Times newspaper and the share price dropped eight times. Similarly, the shares of BCB Holdings are trading at less than a third of the Net Asset Value and should be worth at least the NAV. When OneSource was sold, it went for just over twice the NAV, since a company should generally be worth more than the sum of its parts. 9. Recognition that the shares are undervalued: At the demerger, the literature observed that "The Directors believe that an informed current value of BCB Holdings is not fully reflected at present in its share price, as BCB Holdings' shares are currently valued at a discount of more than 80 per cent to its tangible net assets based on its share price." In addition, the options and warrants of the company, some of which are already exerciseable, were revalued to have an exercise price of US$1.95 (about GBP £1.20 at the current exchange rate). And yet, at what price are BCB Holdings shares now trading? Around 22p each! How better to achieve a sudden realisation of the value of the company than to sell it off? 10. Ashcroft will have to leave Belize eventually: In 1990, Ashcroft came to an agreement with the Belize government allowing him exemption from certain taxes for 30 years. There are still seven years till this agreement expires in 2020, but remember that Ashcroft is now 66 and can't go on forever. In addition, he appears to be spending more time in British politics and writing about military history.

10 reasons why I think Ashcroft is preparing to sell the Belize Bank in 2013 and our shares will be worth six or seven times their present value. 1. Divestment of non-Belize Bank interests: In October 2011, Ashcroft demerged his Caribbean interests into two distinct companies, BCB Holdings, which consists of the head office and 13 branches of the Belize Bank, and WIHL, which contains everything else - the British Caribbean Bank, based in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a 25% interest in Numar, the oil processing business, and a 50% share in a company which operates an international open shipping and company registry in Belize. Ashcroft has essentially stripped BCB Holdings down to just one concern, the Belize Bank, thereby creating a bank "in a box" - a manageable entity for another bank to buy as a central American outpost. 2. Ashcroft always sells off in the end: Readers of Chapter II of Ashcroft's book "Dirty Politics, Dirty Times" will detect a recurring pattern throughout his career of buying a dysfunctional company on the cheap, turning it round and selling it off at a profit. Ashcroft bought the Belize Bank for $1 from the Royal Bank of Canada in 1987. I think he will sell it back to one of the big American banks soon. 3. Precedent for de-merging and selling: This is not the first time that Ashcroft has demerged and sold. In 2005, the "mothership", Carlisle Holdings, consisted of businesses in the USA, Britain and the Caribbean. By February 2006 Ashcroft had split Carlisle Holdings into three companies: OneSource, representing the USA interests, Carlisle Group representing the British interests, and BB Holdings (later renamed BCB Holdings) representing the Caribbean interests. Twenty months later, in October 2007, Ashcroft sold OneSource to rival ABM at six times the market value. Meanwhile, Carlisle Group merged with another company to form Impellam, which is still going strong. 4. Disenchantment with Belize: Having grown up partly in Belize - his father was a colonial official in what was then British Honduras - Ashcroft has stated that "If home is where the heart is, then Belize is my home". Yet recently Ashcroft was absent from Belize for a period of three years. In addition, a businessman of Ashcroft's mettle is unlikely to be swayed by mere sentiment and has stated that it is crucial to know when to sell a company. 5. Ashcroft and his son have left the board Not only has Ashcroft seemingly lost interest in Belize, but more specifically he has ceased to participate in the running of BCB Holdings. He stood down as Non-Executive Director of the company in May 2011. Furthermore, Ashcroft's son, Andrew Ashcroft, aged 33, stepped down from the board of directors of BCB Holdings at the time of the demerger in October 2011. Andrew Ashcroft, perhaps a successor to his father, is now Director and COO of WIHL and this is where the action seems to be.

Is there anything to suggest that Cheryl Jones is doing anything but "stepping down". She is also Chairman of BCB Holdings, so perhaps she'll concentrate her energies there. Wilson, meanwhle, is involved with many Ashcroft companies. Do you know what the next move for IPEL is, Buyat20?

This company only has to the end of the month before they are due to give us our 50p plus interest back. Any ideas anyone?