Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I looked into this earlier this week. According to the Companies Act 2006 they have 21 days before they have to can announce a date for the meeting and then a further 28 days from that date to actually have the meeting. So the last date it could be would be the 10th January 2024.
However, if these are working days then it could be longer because it would then be delayed by weekends and bank holidays.
Companies Act is here - section 304 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/part/13/chapter/3/crossheading/calling-meetings/enacted?view=plain
Heid, I appreciate your response, but I believe that you are misinformed. Reabold have a legal responsibility to be truthful in RNS releases that they make to shareholders and while I am perfectly willing to believe that they will find any means within their power to delay the holding of the requisition for as long as possible, I do not believe that they would simply lie about the dates they received the requisition in the RNS. There would simply be no point.
That is not true is it Heid? The company have been very clear in the RNS that the requisition was dated the 15th but was only received by courier on the 21st after 5pm and by email yesterday on the 22nd. They released the RNS yesterday. Why are you claiming differently and where is your evidence?
I want a vote on who should run the company. I want both sides to put forwards their plans for the future and I want both sides to tell the truth, which does not seem to be happening at the moment. I have my concerns with the behaviour of S&S but I do not want to replace one set of liars with another set.
The ones who are honest will get my vote.
I thought that we had clearly established last week that there were some issues with the gas pressure in the reservoir but that these were not insurmountable and were just part and parcel of running a gas field.
There is no way that Angus will let the pressure drop to a stage where the reservoir is unusable and it seems obvious to me that the remedial work is already in process. In short I don't really see where BV and BP are disagreeing. People are getting caught up analysing minute to minute actions. You need to step back and look at the bigger picture which is simple: as long as Angus are making a profit from gas production they can refinance their loans and all will be fine.
Heid, you said that KS would release all the information on Daybreak from the Strand Hanson minutes this week, but it is already Thursday and there has not been any information released. How long do we have to wait to get your allegations confirmed?
But that is not the case is it? They are not buying the company with 8% of the stock at no premium. They are saying that they are unhappy with the running of the company, which I agree with, and are using their 8% to call a vote on who should run the company in future.
When the date for the requisition is announced every one of the other 92% of shareholders will get a chance to vote on whether they want S&S to continue being in charge or if they want KS and crew to take over. All will have to put forward their concerns and their future plans for the company and then we get to decide who we think should run it in future. If KS can't convince us that he has a better plan than S&S do then he will not win. Simple.
Noveckinggood, I agree with a lot of what you say. there. West Newton is not a guaranteed cure for the company share price. It may be a complete company maker or it may be a total bust, we won't know until it is drilled. The sort-term company maker is Colle Santo, We know the gas is there and we know it will produce millions of dollars worth of gas per year for RBD if the production license is granted. This will act as a revenue generator and a hedge against any lack of success from West Newton as it will continue delivering cash to the company whether West Newton is successful or not. But now there is the big question on whether it will ever be granted a production license. The RBD board have said that this is already in the bag but in the light of all of the information that has come out from Heid they need to clarify this situation as soon as possible, because it makes a huge difference to the future of the company.
Lockedin, if the requisition were held today I would definitely vote to get rid of S&S as I think that they have underperformed for years here and, as has been mentioned by numerous other shareholders, their salary and bonus packages are outrageous compared to what they have delivered in terms of shareholder value.
I also do not like the fact that they are always so economical with the truth. They promised a £4 million return to shareholders and then immediately knocked this down to £3.25 million when they instigated the share buyback program of £750k. Except, the share buyback program never really happened. It stalled at £150k bought and they announced themselves £750k options. So in short, shareholders were promised £4 million, which was reduced to £3.25 million but S&S got £750k. Once again, shareholders are lies to, they lose out and S&S pocket a big chunk of change.
However, as I have said before, if circumstances change then I am happy to change my voting intentions. There are two big short-term issues facing RBD shareholders at the moment in my opinion.
Firstly, there is the will the / won’t the Shell money arrive and if it does, will S&S follow through on their promise to return cash to shareholders? My expectation is that they will not, as they only ever seem to have their own interests at heart, but if they do then it will be a positive in the vote for them column.
Secondly, there is the issue about Colle Santo. This appears to be a fantastic asset that will deliver millions and millions of value to shareholders in the short term once the production is approved. You highlighted to me in your November 9th post that the company had announced in their RNS that: “"Following a review with the heads of Environment, Energy, and Mining of the Abruzzo Region, the Abruzzo regional government confirmed its agreement with, and intention to approve, by decree, the Early Production Programme for the Colle Santo gas field, allowing early revenue generation from the Colle Santo project." And that gave me enormous hope that we would be producing revenue from this field by early 2024 as the company also said that they would get approval to produce before the end of 2023.
However, since your post there has been an enormous amount of detail posted on here by Heid, presumably via KS, from Italian media that says quite the opposite. We very much need to know who is telling the truth.
If S&S can deliver the production permits for Colle Santo by the end of the year as they promised and they also return the promised funds to shareholder, then that gives reason to vote for them. But will they? Their track record says no.
Ultimately, the law, Companies Act 2006, says that the vote will have to go ahead as long as the requisition request is properly filed and meets certain criteria, ie the petitioners possess the required percentage of the company to call the requisition.
It seems that the percentage requirement has bene met and there is no argument about this. However, the percentage requirement was met in the announcement made on the 8th November and then after almost a week of silence, and presumably analysis by RBD's legal team, it was rejected by the board on the 14th for legal technicalities. This meant that the requisition process only started again yesterday when the company received the second requisition.
What concerns me is that the company will waste shareholders time and money paying more lawyers to try and get this requisition rejected on a technicality again and just try to stall the legal process for an indefinite period of time.
Let's hope I am wrong. We deserves to hear the arguments from both sides and vote on who we think will be best placed to deliver value for shareholders going forwards.
My concern is no the fact that they can avoid calling the requisition, its more that they will try to wriggle out of it on technicalities. After all, they have already managed to delay things for over a week. Lets hope that KS and his lawyers have ticked every box in the right place this time.
What is going to be extremely interesting is the information that will come out in the leadup to the requisition. Heid has made some strong claims about erroneous management in the acquisition of Colle Santo and about failures to consider offers for Daybreak. I am sure all of this information will come out in the lead-up to the vote.
It will be enlightening to all shareholders to see in detail what these claims are and what S&S's response it.
There is no sense in getting too worked up about the price of gas and oil at the moment if you ask me. As long as Angus are profitably producing then they will be able to service debt and as long as they are able to service debt then they will refinance their loans. That is the key issue now, refinancing the loans.
Legally the date of the requisition has to be 21 days from the receipt of the requisition notice and then no more than 28 days from the announcement. So by my calculations they could string this out until January. Happy to be wrong though.
Let's see your 4,000 word essay on why to no invest in Block then. Come on you promised it. At the moment, all you have given is short unintelligible rants mostly in capital letters. It is not a very convincing argument. As somebody who claims to lecture on investing, surely you can do better? I await the 4,000 word essay with interest.
Heid has made a number of promises on behalf of KS, which need to be delivered. Or KS needs to formally disassociate himself with these posts that are apparently being made on his behalf.
If the accusations that Heid is making are true then there are very serious questions for S&S to answer and it does look as if they are not fit custodians to run RBD. But at the moment they are just that - unfounded accusations on the LSE forum. I await to see the evidence.