Member Info for Jiving

Actually the October 2017 turned out to be to finance a Canadian ''production opportunity'' that did not materialise, and not for operating expenses (the May 2017 placing had raised money for operating expenses into 2018). That was not admitted at the time but was disclosed through the usual Arthur means of a response to an investor email that got reported on this Board. Thus did we learn many months later the rationale for the fund raising & indirectly what had happened, the expenses for yet another failed potential acquisition also appeared in one of the mid 2018 quarterlies.

So the sad reality is that Arthur has a very recent history of undertaking a placing, when he still has adequate funds for operating expenses, purely to pursue an acquisition. So it is absolutely not unreasonable when he spells out his intention to pursue an acquisition in 2019 in the RNS, and follows up with repeating it in the podcast that we fear he may well be planning to repeat October 2017 again in the short term.

The individual whose words & actions repeatedly drives down the share price & destroys shareholder value is called Arthur Milholland and please do contact him about his current acquisition intentions & request he holds off until long suffering shareholders get value from OPL226:
amillholland@canoverseas.com

R_Dunc. Believe me, I also hope that it is not a justified concern. We long suffering shareholders need to reap the benefits of financing Arthur, the team & OPL226 before we launch into any other endeavours.

BTW the crappy LSE predictive text just changed a misspelt 'financcing Arthur' into 'fancying Arthur' - just to be clear thats not my position.

R_Dunc. My concern is not when Arthur has to raise in order to fund OPL226 expenses - and I do understand that needs to be done regularly & at whatever price the market demands, until hopefully we finally (after 10 years with Arthur in charge of COL) start having an oil revenue that can cover costs & maybe acquisitions . My SOLE current concern is that Arthur 'may' be planning to raise not just for OPL226 'necessary' expenses but to pursue an 'unnecessary' near-term acquisition as highlighted in his podcast & unusual RNS (unusual in that he never voluntarily gives us updates outside of quarterly reporting requirements).

If Arthur gave us news & podcasts without a placing - but simply because it is owed to long suffering shareholders to inform them - perhaps there would be less suspicion that:

Arthur+RNS+Podcasts = Placing 2 weeks later.

Exactly its the same pattern, like a serial killer, except Arthur kills COPL shareholder value repeatedly with placings. IF he does do an outrageous suicidally dilutive placing it will likely be happening before the Nigerian results for either of two reasons:

1. The leaked NNPC final approvals news is fantasy, and was pumped via IR purely for deniability purposes, therefore get the placing done now before grim reality becomes apparent;

2. The placing is being done 2 months ahead of the mooted April date given in the August 2018 Prospectus because Arthur's ego is hellbent - at any cost to shareholders - of pursuing yet another crazy acquisition that 'cannot wait'. He literally cannot wait for any positive news regarding OPL226 to boost the price to say 1p in perhaps a few weeks time & then do a placing, because a pie-in-the-sky deal has to be done before then.

Shore Capital investors - anything going on?

Berta. IF Arthur is seriously chasing another crazy acquisition (as highlighted in RNS & podcast), as well as covering COPL operating costs he will be raising a lot more than a billion shares, more like 2-3 billion & he will be lucky to get it away @0.15p.

Remember he has pulled this stunt three times in 20 months at Shore Capital - dumping shares on them at 0.50p, 1.00p & 0.335p. So all of the Shore investors who held are massively under the water & he wants to sucker them in a fourth time! Shore Capital investors should say 'COD' - Cash on Delivery - time Arthur finally delivered on something!

I don't see any lies or disinformation in recent posts - please specify?

But are we guaranteed an RNS after the election results at least confirming we have final approvals as leaked to us by IR a couple of weeks ago? Official confirmation of anything would be something prior to the placing.

NoEasy, R_Dunc. I understand & agree that the rolling timelines on OPL226 are not all down to Arthur, although he has unfortunately deliberately, repeatedly mislead us regarding drilling dates & a named SPA.

My fear is that the acquisition talk is a near term ''opportunity'' that he is pursuing - which is why it was flagged in the company RNS AND in the interview - those matching statements within a week were for a purpose. This may need cash now & Arthur being Arthur he would have no compunction about a giant placing at say 0.15p to fund it. Even though that would - yet again - instantly destroy value for long suffering shareholders for some pie-in-the-sky nonsense.

IF IF he pulls that stunt I for one intend to go all out to seek an 'acquisition' - namely the acquisition of COPL by any other oil company on the planet. In such circumstances, where he yet again wrecks shareholder value for some ego-driven fantasy, we need to call a halt to save our capital - what remains of it.

Surely R-Dunc that 'turning' depends on two things.

One, when Arthur deigns to release 'the news' & what the news consists of - confirmation of final/all NNPC/DPR approvals; all necessary licences; an agreed lead & named SPA (as promised over 6 months ago). IF we got that in one week's time, when the Nigerian election is out of the way, the share price has a chance of moving towards underlying value.

Two, whether Arthurs mention of pursuing production acquisitions is code for a near term equity placing (given i. podcasts, ii. he's in London - meetings with Shore Capital?) to pay for some crazy crazy gamble on yet another 'production asset' when we have two potentially vast production assets already - we absolutely don't need some crazy Arthur-ego-boosting third play.

It is so so depressing that Arthur is coming out with this drivel when he should be solely 100% focussed for the next two years+ on actually getting production flowing from OPL226. Arthur has run COPL for nearly 10 years now - and not produced one barrel of oil, indeed not even a thimbleful. COPL has been Arthur's fantasy oil company, pursuing one crazy reckless gamble after another but never ever producing oil, but all paid for by investor mugs.

Exactly its staggering & shows how simple it is to bypass every 'control' shareholders are supposed to have over 'their' company and its assets. IMO this is a green light to every fraudster & crook on the planet on how to 'legally' defraud shareholders of their assets and leave behind a worthless shell - all without a vote.

Good summary of the current positives & negatives Pettycash. We investors need to consider both going forward. Spring is going to be the crunch in terms of technology & finance. An NXP001 deal outside China would be a great start.

And a surprising amount of volume. uk.investing.com is showing 3.93m shares traded by 12.43!

Good to see you back NoEasy with a characteristically thought provoking post.

So if we 'should' be at 3D seismic + signature fee = $67m = approx £50m = 2p a share vs 0.23p. Leaving aside something for Mozambique we are some 10x below where we 'should' be, that matches my (& I am sure others) hunch about how crazily underpriced we are relative to other small oil explorers who are near term producers.

Why? This must surely come down to COPLs dire 10 year record & the continual failure to keep to promises/timetables on OPL226, plus the only time we hear a real/spoken update is usually directly before a dilutive placing. My fear & I suspect that of the market is of a massive dilutive placing happening before we get an official RNS on final approvals, possibly all licences & crucially a named SPA. What would destroy existing shareholders potential return would be a 0.15p placing versus say 1.5p or even 1p all of which I could live with. Given we have had two podcasts last week I am frankly very fearful.

That NFX is unloved is simply a reality - see share performance since early 2018. If we don't get ramped/spiked again at 2p we are heading under till news which now may be Spring. China deals don't seem to have the buzz of say US ones, if NXP001 is hot surely somebody must bite in the US, then we go up.

Bell60. Our 40% in OPL226 must be worth something considerably more than £4-5m given the state we are apparently at with the authorities (IF IF we can believe a single word Arthur indirectly 'says' via IR). The huge negative that hangs over us is called Arthur, that is what completely destroys value in this company. We desperately need taking over by another (any other?) oil company that can then introduce management to the situation and thereby begin to realise value. How to precipitate that?

Interesting to see how Buhari's support in concentrated in the North & Atiku's in the South:
https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/02/03/how-nigerians-may-vote-state-by-state/

Rift. Actually I dont want to annoy him I want to change his disgraceful behaviour towards shareholders. A huge problem is 'we' have an expensive Board of Directors (whose fees have stayed the same even though company is 5% the size it was). At the very least we should propose alternative Directors to actually represent shareholders. Perhaps we could propose & hope to pass measures to limit share capital dilution by putting any annual dilution over 10% pa to a shareholder vote? Changing Arthur's remuneration package to 1/3 salary, 2/3 share options etc.

I see rk's point versus shareholder groups, but you can bypass that by actually making sure to get good people onto the Board instead of the current rubber stamps.

Aside from this & independently I wonder how we might encourage a merger/takeover. If we could get say 20% of voting shares behind a takeover, pledging support to a particular company & a proposal. I would frankly rather have my shareholding diluted by half in a takeover & get a decent CEO into the bargain than have my shareholding halved every 8-9 months & still stuck with Arthur.

I agree with most of what you say R_Dunc and have taken a similar line myself since the RNS. But regarding the RNS, consider the timing it comes out just before he arrives in London to do more podcasts, so my hunch is it was to provide background & a backdrop for them rather than for our benefit.

MK, Bolton. Thats my hunch as well. Its a mess but as far as we know there is no immediate need for capital. When the gut selling stops there could potentially be a bounce.

A lot of us are long term shareholders by choice or necessity. Maybe its time we started acting like the owners.

i. Challenge the current Board and propose alternative 'shareholder' candidates
ii. Pass binding resolutions on placings and management remuneration
iii. Pursue merger/takeover options - maybe ASAP. What have we got to lose?