Member Info for kibu

M, M, M, ... Mama? Malema's not quite gone to ground but this week's events may have doused some of his fire. Crying to his Mama is, however, as unlikely as a useful Lonrho RNS. Amplats agreed to reinstate 12,000 workers and give 'hardship allowances' to offset lost pay if workers returned today. However, a few hours ago, the BBC reported that police were firing rubber bullets and tear gas at a crowd of "about 1,000 striking miners." A few days ago AngloAmerican's FTSE100 CEO "stepped down" (supposedly not directly connected to the strikes). GoldFields' CEO today estimated their last 2 month losses at $150m. GoldFields and AngloGold "may have their debt ratings cut to junk" [The New Age quoting S&P this month] Nonetheless, some striking groups appear conciliatory. Some have indeed already returned to work. Likewise, the companies that threatened to close down their SA operations have still not followed through. Ostensibly, such developments will lower Malema's profile and relevance. The 'All Africa' article, "Zimbabwe: Malema - Rebel Without Cause?" published a few days ago, discusses his Zimbabwe "weekender" with good, incisive comments. SA's President Zuma may well have the upper hand at the moment with the bellicose ex-ANC Youth leader. Recent corruption allegations against Malema are potentially damaging. (Odd parallels with 80s Scargill/Tory media, except that Malema was no miner.) Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF has, however, not officially embraced Malema despite his "advance dowry" and rhetoric. For Lonrho, this does not impact today's results. Yet reading management's reports and those of individual operations such as SA's Kwikbuild who "are moving rapidly into the construction of mining camps for the oil and gas sectors throughout Africa" [homepage 30.10.12] this should be of investor concern. Why has Lonrho not seen fit to issue an RNS about their Southern African operations from whence 68% of their revenue is derived? Investors may wish to contrast the LACK of an RNS about 68% of Lonrho's business with the last 'business' RNS released on 12 September, RNS0456M. Fishy? Transparent business? Lonrho spectacularly mis-managed their Zimbabwean investments returning less than 10p in the pound to investors. They expensively aborted their Zimbabwe airline deal. Are they now misreading South Africa and the implications for Southern Africa? Since 2005, Lonrho's management has frequently mistaken, and underestimated, annoying mosquito bites for crocodile crunches. Every time, Lonrho's management has survived. Since 2005, investors have paid. M-M-M Malema? M-M-M Mug? M-M-M-Money? kibu

Paul Hill in Moneyweek? Moneyweek is owned by Agora, publisher of multiple tipsheets. Agora tipsheets (eg RHPS) and Moneyweek were enthusiastically pumping emails to the large subscriber base back in early 2009. Titles included, "Kuwait of Africa" and "Oil price boom." You should have got in then. Manraaj Singh, Chief Investment Strategist of 'Profit Hunter,' was quoted by Tom Bulford et al. Brilliant stuff, er? Wider picture? Moneyweek/Agora writer, Manraaj Singh is not even FSA-registered. Moneyweek went bigtime on Lonrho in an article on 2 October 2007. The bulls loved it. There was some lively debate on iii. On 15 August 2008, I published an article explaining why the share price had subsequently fallen 50%. I predicted further falls but did not foresee the subsequent collapse to 1.9p. (Research tip: AMB Capital/Sprague/LonZim.) Any Moneyweek readers that had followed the tip lost almost the lot. How can a magazine keep credibility? Drop the writer. Exeunt. Enter stage left "Manraajenaration Singh" who writes a tip about the "Kuwait of Africa." (BTW The "mad Sikh"'s other claim to fame is about VietNam's "Slingshot economy." Manraaj, if you are still in the investment business, please send me a private message.) Remember Garry Hill? His inaccurate and sycophantic warblings about Lonrho were oft-quoted in Moneyweek. He moved on to "be" part of Questor at The Daily Telegraph. Garry's best moment was his independent writing about the Credit Rating Agencies. His lowest? Writing about Lonrho. Garry, please write. London in January? Back to Paul Hill. He wrote to his subscriber base, promoting the Moneyweek/Agora tips about Lonrho. This, for me, damages his credibility. He also personally promoted Lonrho in Moneyweek back in February this year. Depending on your timing, you would have made about 10% (and sold perfectly), lost 45%, or be evens. Bad tip. Read his February splurge and comment about the subsequent performance here. Rather than juvenile limb-chewing and personal invective, this BB could greatly benefit from more informed and biting debate. kibu

M, M, M. Mumbling and rumbling. Lonrho's published t/o and assets in Southern Africa are somewhat out of date. The accounts show most of their revenue and asset base there. The depreciating Rand adds extra currency variables to the financial risks. However, while down over 10% against Sterling on the year, Lonrho's 53% SA revenue is not all done in Rand. And against the US Dollar, which Lonrho's management conveniently like to quote, the difference is slightly less. (Although Rand/Dollar is at a 3 year low.) Worse, is that S&P cut South Africa's credit rating a few days ago, with negative outlook, to just above junk. News from Gold Fields yesterday that they sacked 8,000 striking employees won't help anyone, including Lonrho. The spotty EC2 analysts, so gleefully quoted by bullish posters on various BBs, seem reluctant to discuss these issues. Likewise: Lonrho's enormous retained earnings deficit, the post-2005 history of failed businesses, consistent lack of operationally-generated cash and ongoing corporate governance issues. The bulls also stampede past local political concerns. These strikes had been coming though nary a Lonrho analyst nor tipsheet editor paid attention. Whereto now? Malema's recent 'weekender' in Zimbabwe, as reported in SA's 'Mail&Guardian' "Fighting for the right to party" (19.10.12), is worth reading. Last month's CNN's Amanpour interview is worth watching amongst the couple of thousand 'Julius Malema' videos on YouTube. With Lonrho's share price up 450% from the low yet, even now languishing at a mere 20% of what it was, clearly there's speculative upside with enough concerted pump. The risks, however, are not getting enough coverage and the downside danger remains. kibu

Marikana, Malema, Madonsela and mumbling 53% of Lonrho's revenue is TO Southern Africa. 68% of Lonrho's revenue is derived FROM assets in Southern Africa. Worthwhile keeping tabs on SA news where Lonmin, Amplats and AngloGold Ashanti (earlier Lonrho) are battling the unions. Amplats fired 12,000 workers last week. In the industry, 75,000 are supposedly illegally on strike. Meanwhile the ANC Youth League is typically bellicose and supportive of a change of government in December. Former ANC Youth League leader, the famous/notorious Julius Malema, was again in the news today having been targeted for fraud. It's a charge he decries as being politically motivated and says he is "guilty in absentia." What gives? Well, Lonrho's m-m-management made a horrendously expensive m-m-mistake with shareholder money when they launched LonZim. You put a pound in and a couple of years later it was worth 10p. They got Zimbabwe wrong and they also screwed up expensively with Fly540 Zimbabwe. Not quite as bad as Lonrho. But, then again, they're all linked and Lonrho's business is inextricably linked with the fortunes of South Africa - or failures. Marikana? Berkeley Square? The nightingale is migratory and winters in southern Africa. kibu

It's a pity that you have descended ever lower, Maltman. All I have ever asked for was some debate here. Your last post is just bitter personal invective. The only reason I've not reported it as offensive is because it's sad and should stand as a record of your emptiness. Your line >>>i am very happy with my top up at 7.4, stop loss kicked me out sub 10 so a 33% profit<<< is one of the most nonsensical I've read on any BB in the past month, nay, year. If your first language is English, then your problem appears to be arithmetical and directional. I suggest you engage in more fulsome debate once you have washed your mouth out with a strong soap and got yourself up to speed in basic accounting. kibu

Dear MALTMAN, are you proud of your 15 Sep message? It appears grammatically and financially challenged. Hindsight proves my 4sight, eh, mate? Two weeks later an investor would be 30% down (inc. costs). I'm not going to suggest you swim in the shallow end with fully inflated water wings because I don't for one moment think you are a genuine investor. Your agenda has nothing to do with other LSE posters. If, perchance, I am in error, discuss H21's CFD and today's significant delayed trades. If that's too difficult, go back to some of my earlier postings. Heck, just **** me off again. Your record of discussion is not exactly engaging. kibu

Perhaps the reason TCyp didn't respond to the recent post in which I refuted and disproved his untruths is that he knew he was out of order? After all, he was on iii mid-December poking fun at my bearish comments and recommending a "Strong Buy" at 11.5p. It fell quite quickly to 9p, climbed momentarily to 12.5p before sinking steadily and inexorably (inevitably?) to 6.5p. Hey, it's 10p now and Maltman is "loving this company." An investor, with bid/ask + dealing costs, would be even worse off than those figures imply. Look at the seven year chart of Lonrho. Compare the P&L "Retained Earnings" figure from 2005 with that of 2011. Try to get some understanding of how Lonrho's Cash Flow account works. Then, just for extra fun, answer the question of what David Lenigas' total remuneration package is. Two national newspapers published different figures last week. Both were wildly inaccurate. That is the sad state at Lonrho. Truth is quite hard to come by. Who should you trust? kibu

gowerboy/dominator >>>Hi Kibu. Thanks for many balanced, informative posts,full of facts. You argue your case well. Please keep up the hard work in finding and distributing the information you post on this board gowerboy<<< Thanks for that. I'd also be happy for some decent contrary discussion but did you see the comment posted directly before yours? Extra stimulus to keep posting. kibu

Searching "lenny+fishy+horizon" on google.com brings over 3 million results. The top 3 contain the word SHARK in the headline.

Two months ago Lonrho was 6.89p. It rose a little then traded fairly consistently around 8p. It suddenly rises above 10p. What gives? David Lenigas' departure may be seen by some as a positive. Yet back in 2005, when he joined, there was a similar spike upwards in the price. During his tenure Lonrho's SP went above 50p. CEO Geoffrey White's words in today's RNS, "David has spent seven years successfully developing Lonrho into a company uniquely focused on Africa with operations across the Continent employing thousands and stimulating development and growth. Under his tenure the Company successfully transitioned from the AIM market to the Main Market of the LSE." are hollow. What is the truth? Lonrho's P&L now has a deficit bigger than Lonrho's market cap when Lenigas joined; a share price that briefly rose to 50p, collapsed to 1.9p, struggled thereafter, was recently 6.89p and now (on euphoria?) is 10p; carries significantly higher debt; makes NO distributable profit - all after SEVEN years' work. The man truly deserves his bonus. Having hoodwinked so many for so long on the basis of 'jam tomorrow' it is time he went. Strewth, the toast hasn't even arrived, let alone the jam. 'It's very good jam,' said the Queen. 'Well, I don't want any TO-DAY, at any rate.' 'You couldn't have it if you DID want it,' the Queen said. 'The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day.' 'It MUST come sometimes to "jam to-day,"' Alice objected. 'No, it can't,' said the Queen. 'It's jam every OTHER day: to-day isn't any OTHER day, you know.' 'I don't understand you,' said Alice. 'It's dreadfully confusing!' kibu

Lonrho readers may remember the bond issue in 2010. This placed $60m of debt with various companies including Horizon 21. The initial conversion price was £0.1559 per share, significantly higher than the current price. The bonds bear interest at an astonishing 7% (6% higher than this week's one year LIBOR). Potential investors should check the weight of this, the costs and the means to pay back on maturity in 2015. Horizon 21 is one of the rabble of hedge funds operating out of Pfaffikon, Switzerland. Man Financial, Active Alpha, Horizon and RMF (now owned by Man) are all there. The latter three are all related as 'spin-offs' of each other. A common link is UBS. The former UBS Group CEO, Marcel Rohner, fall-guy when UBS hit the buffers and their stock price collapsed, is vice-chairman of Active Alpha. Active Alpha span out of Horizon the same year Horizon ponied up for the Lonrho bonds. The former CEO of Horizon, is now CEO of Alpha Active. Before that he was CEO of UBS Investment Bank in Switzerland. No secret that there's little love lost between Man and these other outfits (and their many further ex-UBS employees). Just a little background about Horizon 21's derivative CFD 9.4% interest in Lonrho and why things may not always appear the way they first might seem when you look at UBS's 9.4% interest. kibu

Should any reader wish to check the truth of what TCyp wrote today at 09.11 you can see the kibu posting history on iii and note that within 12 months of kibu first putting many strong sell votes the price fell from 40p+ to under 2p. I argued the reasons why at the time. The ridicule from several other posters was quite similar to what is happening on this BB now. Methinks they doth protest too much. Look, I'm not expecting roses but the brickbats fly in the face of fact. Can we bring something back to investor debate here rather than personal issues? Lonrho has consistently lost money. Why? The BOD have enriched themselves beyond belief and have the gall to pay themselves bonuses. Why? The BOD has sold share placing after share placing that have fallen in value but been fully taken up. Why? The BOD talks of 'dividend in 2013' but has no distributable funds. Why? Operations lose money despite rising turnover. Why? The only reason the cash flow account is positive is thanks to new investment funds. Why? With issues like these why would anyone waste time debating messengers rather than messages? kibu

When people stoop so low as to not telling the truth, one has to wonder about their agenda. >>>each time he posts similar comments the SP goes up<<< You know that this is not true, TCyp, so why do you post it? As for UBS, well, you maybe haven't read the RNSs correctly. Check the derivatives held by Horizon. Oh, BTW UBS >>>who are more knowledgable<<< had to be rescued by the Swiss government and taxpayers money. It is ongoing. Shame on you, TCyp. Would you also have encouraged people to invest in Enron or held investments with Lehman Brothers? Would you, so sophisticated, have seen Bernie Madoff's Ponzi when the "best" financial analysts couldn't see it for 12 years? Away with you, young man. If deceit and untruths are the best you can do then it seems you are not up to any debate or in-depth analysis of what Lonrho has done, is doing and likely will do. Meanwhile it would be wonderful to have some informed debate. When you read comments like >>>plucks some financials from a statement<<< or >>>sketchy financials<<< it is worrisome. Are these posters paid for their obfuscation and hubris or what? The P&L, as shown by Lonrho, is in massive deficit. It went up by more than 50% last year - a year in which Lonrho's BOD said they made a profit. I agree with several of the recent posters. This is incredibly funny. kibu

It's always been a Lonrho fantasy to run a good airline network in Africa. Here's one of their websites http://www.fly540africa.com/angola.aspx and here's another http://www.fly540.com/ Neither of these websites appear to offer flights in Angola - a country where Lonrho claims to have up to seven destinations. The only one which has ever appeared to operate is Cabinda-Soyo. Cabinda is an Angolan exclave bitterly opposed to rule from Luanda. Some airline. Some figures. BTW 64.7% load factor with current kerosene prices and spiralling crew costs is, while better than before, diabolical. It's not a money-making operation. Kenya Airways' latest figures are due but several months ago they declared 62.2% in Africa and 73.5% in Kenya - both trending up and despite a massive fleet expansion which Lonrho/Fly540/Fastjet has not had. Lonrho's new planes will be filled from where exactly? It's not about passenger numbers. It's about load factors, ticket prices, operating costs and ratios. Passenger numbers are, to an extent, irrelevant. The problem here seems, as always, to be about headline numbers - adding planes, buying companies, increasing turnover. Those vanity numbers add absolutely nothing to the sanity of the bottom line. I invest in a company to make money. Lonrho makes none. Worse than that, it's lost almost £50m of investors funds over the last seven years. Little wonder that, despite the hopeful messages posted on this BB, over 70% of Lonrho investors have seen their shareholdings sink to less than fifty quid. kibu

Why Lonrho can't pay a dividend (4) There's a lot of noise about Lonrho's "profits" and anticipation of a dividend. Encouraged by Lonrho's BOD, it's easy to understand the confusion. While Lonrho's BOD disingenuously uses whatever definition of "profit" suits their public purposes, the P&L deficit continues to balloon. The last audited company accounts show the deficit rising from £31.4m to £48.7m. Telling, perhaps, that The Chairman's Report talks of 'optimising profits in 2012' rather than MAKING any? kibu

sage, I'm with you on that. Have posted on many of the Lennie boards over the years (eg Hot Tuna during its steady plunge to oblivion). Typical thing is that once you start 'exposing' some of the financial nonsense on a public forum you hurt some people's delusions and they don't like it. Aggression is an all-too-common 'schoolground bully' response. kibu

Flying in the face of facts (as several recent posters have enthusiastically done) suits Lonrho PR, intended or not. Lonrho's last seven years doesn't interest 'newbies.' Why should it? A bombed-out share worth 20% of what it was, with far more assets now, an enormous turnover, excellent contacts and enormous (potential) contracts. Wow! Nirvana, El Dorado, Black Jack, Lotto, whatever. Hang on inebriates/scycophants. Look at the P&L and Reserves. Get a grip. Yeah. Duh! I love parties and am not a party pooper. However, having posted several "Sells" in mid-June and seeing a 50% fall since then it is SO SO funny to read the absolute trite that certain financially-challenged antagonistic posters wrote last week. Check their history. Do they understand "Reserves?" While happily dissing 'kibu' they don't have the b*lls to offer ANY opinion. OTOH "kibu" said "Sell" when it was around 50p. It soon fell to 1.9p. "kibu" presently has no opinion at 8p. We went 'no opinion' at 6.89p on 28 June. Check the record. Check the record of other posters too. "kibu" has no financial interest in Lonrho's SP falling but has a public proven track record since 2007 - about 2 years longer than anyone else on this BB. Happy to provide proof and track record. kibu

Why Lonrho can't pay a dividend (3) Anyone prepared to do the sums of how Lonrho's BOD have enriched themselves since 2005/6 will not only find a cash leak from this company but may also wonder about how much management time has been squandered on the various contrived schemes. Whether weakness or unprofitable (for the company) distraction, it's worth looking at positives. The BOD have added new businesses that have immensely increased turnover. They have 'survived' in an extremely challenging financial climate and an extraordinarily difficult local political environment. They have raised stupendous sums of money in placings that have increased the issued share capital some tenfold. PROFIT is where they've blown it. SAILS & NorseAir are but two spectacularly poor buys. Is the BOD truly 'savvy' about Africa? Lonrho's RNS history is worth a trawl. There is no consistency between management talk and their results. Fly540 Zimbabwe is a good example. Fly540 Uganda and, more extreme, Fly540 Angola, are further examples of utter hubris. In business growth and African 'politics' Lonrho's BOD has presently delivered a financial LOSS to shareholders after SEVEN years of toil. Yet the BOD has never lost a shareholder vote and, until the recent offering, has always managed to sell out their placings. kibu

Why Lonrho can't pay a dividend (2) Lonrho's BOD defines 'profit' in increasingly desperate ways. Valuing unproductive, maturing trees is, despite following IFRS practice, a 'profit' without cash. A fire, disease, drought, inaccuracy, theft, or crop pricing collapse are just six of the risks attached. For Lonrho, it was a major source of 'profit' last year. Not only has 'profit' been banked in advance, there is an enormous accumulated deficit on the P&L. This legally precludes Lonrho's BOD from paying any dividend. A dividend usually requires cash. It is the ultimate 'macho' test of management - yet another area where Lonrho's BOD has proved miserably inadequate. kibu

Why Lonrho can't pay a profit (1) Chances of a Lonrho dividend are slightly higher than an Angolan snowstorm or Tiny Rowland becoming the next Chairman. Lonrho's annual results have been so consistently appalling since 2006 that in order to pay a dividend it would require a Capital Reorganisation, a shareholder vote and High Court approval. Have a look at the P&L. Take a peek at The Companies Act 2006. For anoraks, the relevant part is Part 23 Chapter 1. The blusterers will continue their nonsense. Just don't fall for it. kibu