Member Info for kibu

What's the difference? (1) ... ... between David Lenigas and David Lenigas? It seems that this Lithuanian/Australian of several Australian/English/Monaco addresses, multiple marriages and attendant offspring (according to Bryony, Sir Richard Needham and other good eggs) has multiple director identities. At Companies House he is registered as 915 046 887, 915 527 092, 916 099 864, 916 541 681, 916 498 903, 916 594 634, 916 792 917, 915 777 604, 909 298 429. Er, what's the difference?

Cayman Islands - Que? Man? Nothing against the Cayman Islands. Just interested to read today's US Senate Committee hearings and that HSBC is closing 20,000 Cayman Island accounts because of "suspicious" activity. The HSBC Head of compliance has understandably taken an organ-damaging dive onto a rusty, serrated blade. Let's hope that there is absolutely nothing to link recent Lonrho derivative equity activity with H21, except a purely coincidental link with the Cayman Islands.

Huge advertising feature/advertorial about Angola in latest Fortune magazine. In the section about transport Fly540 is not mentioned. Instead, Angola Airservices gets plugged. Their VP says, "Now we have new aircraft we are in a prominent position and will be able to serve our customers better." This might be of interest to tiny Fly540 Angola as their business plan is apparently similar. Odd though that, as with Fly540, true supporting information is hard to find. It seems Angola Airservices was grounded last year and remains EU-blacklisted. Lovely pictures on Google Images but these pre-date the closure. Elsewhere in the feature, Angola Airservices has an advertisement that lists their website as voeangola.com. It's well worth a look. Check it quick because the registration expires this Wednesday. What a pity that those who paid for these THIRTEEN pages didn't check that this website was registered, in the year that the company was grounded, to a Sao Paulo address. Oh well, Stelios is Greek, a "hero" in Britain and lives in Monaco. C'est la vie. kibu

A good posting appeared on iii's website this weekend. The linguistically-challenged poster, MUFC, is clearly biased but highlights interesting figures worth reading. A prospective investor trawling through LONR BB messages of the last year on this site might mistakenly think there's a good opportunity here. But take a look back 12 months ago to the 'fervour' in BB postings on LSE, ADVFN and III. Lonrho was 20p. Brokers recommended. Posters were hyper, bullish and rudely ****ged off the bears. With a storm and a tailwind it might have doubled. Truth? A double wouldn't even have been a recovery. And what did happen? The opposite. 70% collapse. It recently slipped to 6p+ and is now at 7p+. kibu wrote about it then, explained why, predicted the fall, updated and stuck with it. If LSE posters can't use a phone, read accounts, and remove the rose petals from their binoculars then you're likely to continue losing money to the traders that love LONR and you pay them. Investor questions: a) when did you last get a dividend b) how much capital has Lonrho raised since 12/05 c) what is the current market cap d) what is the 'accumulated retained earnings' figure e) what is the present 'cash burn.' If you can't correctly answer all five, why would you invest in Lonrho? The low for this share was 1.9p and it was not long ago. A scandal preceded the collapse. Could another be due? Discussions about Rubicon, Africa, Fly540, David Lenigas, share prices and so on are rather irrelevant without answers to the above. Some people believe Lonrho can pay a dividend next year. Some people believe the earth is flat.* Who knows? Let's wait for Lenigas and White to deliver a dividend next year. Just don't hold your breath. kibu As any employees of the Crimson Permanent Assurance or Monty Python followers will know, this is a widespread and well-established belief and especially relevant to any discussion about Lonrho dividends.

Who, or what, is H21 Macro, Lonrho's latest "investor"? [See RNS4796H 12 July] It's a Cayman Islands company although its 6 person office is in Pfäffikon, Switzerland - home to many hedge funds including UK's Man Investments. It launched in 2000 with the "objective to seek to achieve superior returns by investing in global fixed income, currency, commodity and equity markets, and their related derivatives." Minimum investment is a million Swiss Francs. What have they achieved? A compounded return over the last eleven years of 3%. Their new interest in Lonrho is a c.£5m CFD trade. As such, expect further announcements shortly. Keeping it blindingly understated, kibu

Nice piece about building African infrastructure and the opportunities for investment there. It's upbeat as expected, having been written for the Beeb by Tata Communications. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18699197 Perhaps more relevant to Lonrho (re. Rubicon's expansion plans and Lonrho's 'Easyhotel' arrangements) is a BBC reporter's article posted this week about Angola - supposedly a key country for the company. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243 Good to see the upward tick on LONR from 6.73p.

Lonrho's abysmal performance is far from being the result of a one-off storm or even a short term problem. I do so apologise for boring (annoying?) PR-stoolies with facts. But briefly: The refurbished Lonrho boat set sail almost seven years ago and struck a sandbank. They've been trying to refloat ever since (2005 - 157m shares, 2012 - 1,568m shares). Big "storms" such as NorseAir (2007), SAILS (2008), LonZim/AMB (2009), and ongoing Fly540 problems have swallowed shareholder funds and blown a huge hole below the water. Sorry that some can't see this but look at page 67 of the published accounts for 2011. Check a) how much money was raised in the multiple placings that have seen a 900% paper equity increase b) the value of Lonrho - including 'legacy' - in 2005 c) cash in 2005 v. cash in 2012. d) the share graph since December 2005. Done. kibu

Great to have your contribution, AriGold. Despite your blatant disregard of BB etiquette, you will hopefully stimulate further debate. That's positive. Lonrho's directors delusionally see themselves running a FTSE-100 company. Your opening sentence is a tad odd, grammatically and factually, n'est ce pas? How familiar are you with UK director pay, corporate governance and FTSE-100? BT Chairman, Sir Michael Rake, for example, received total remuneration of £672,000 for 2011. BT profit? £2,421 million and a share dividend of 8.3p. Total remuneration of BT's "Big 4" was £5,841,000. Total board pay at "tiny" Lonrho was an esophagus-paralysing £4,793,000. Not only did David Lenigas get an enormous pay increase (disgracefully part-disguised as a pension contribution) he also picked up a bonus (er, for what?) of £296,000 - nicely tipping his pay over the million mark. The board till-dipped an extra bonus of £816,000 for their work last year. Can anyone on this BB explain that, when, for the umpteenth year, there's no dividend? May I suggest, WADR, AriGold and others, that you direct your energies and ire towards the directors rather than fellow posters that merely ask provocative questions? Lonrho is one of the worst examples of director failure that I have ever seen in an LSE company. Page 53 of Lonrho's latest annual report explains that the purpose of these bonuses is "To align remuneration with shareholders' interests ..." If you go further into it, you'll find even more payments to the "Big 4": benefits in kind, car allowances and so on, share option gains realised of £578,000, &c. Is this good value and 'aligned with shareholders' interests?' No need for irrelevant comments about Gorgeous Emma, thanks, AirGold. If, indeed, you think Lonrho is a long-term buy, assess the present management's efforts since late-2005. "None of the major shareholders have sold" - well, really? Depends how many seconds you've been following Lonrho, I suppose. And Blackrock? Well, I've written elsewhere and need to be careful, however, if what you say is true, how smart do you think their investment this time last year at 16.5p was? I welcome your informed response. I've heard from PRs that PIs know nothing at all. kibu

Sorry if some of you can't get 'on message' here. I thought my 'pitch' on 13th June was fairly clear. I answered criticism on 15th. If you still don't "see" then either your glasses are fogged up or mine. I must apologise for only predicting a fall this June, not a 30% fall in two weeks. When I first started bleating warnings about Lonrho the price was 40p something and it fell stomach-wrenchingly quickly to 1.9p. I was not a buyer then because, 'risk of business failure' was writ large on my analysis, not 'never underestimate this phoenix's extraordinary salesmanship.' And by that time I was also interested in Lonrho's ethics. Having found none, it didn't square with making further investment, know what I mean? The price eventually returned to 21p - er, the price it was last June, folks. At that time I wrote 10 postings on the iii board with 9 'sell votes.' One detractor wrote, "maybe kibu should do proper research' (after I had researched local aircraft movement data, questioned defunct flight coding, called all five of Fly540's Angolan telephone lines and got no answer and questioned whether planes were really flying - see DT articles published five months later); another wrote, "even if (kibu) has to make up negative views that bare no resemblance to the facts" - and he voted "Buy" at 21p; my favourite was, "A lot of Sell Recs here ... How wrong can you be!!" Well, a price fall of about 70% in 12 months proves everyone correct. I've got the message, chaps. You'd rather have a rosy picture than a balanced debate. Not a single poster has responded to my question about the accumulated retained earnings on Lonrho's P&L. Look there. Try to understand, and it might help you on your quest for a bit of truth and fact. It's NOT a rosy picture but who knows, you might save YOU a bit of dosh. Frankly, I'm surprised that Lonrho has tanked 30% in the last 14 days. I expected this to happen earlier. When it didn't, I wondered if 'our pool' was wrong. Look at Lonrho's 7 year chart, the accounts and your alphabet soup tomorrow. You just might find 'gonwa thigt' or some such worrying combination of letters. kibu

Would anyone care to examine some facts about Lonrho rather than discussing mere hopes? Lonrho hasn't made a profit since the present antipodean management nested. By 'profit' I mean some real cash stuffed in the piggy bank - revaluing trees on a faraway meadow (IFRS, for Lonrho = Instant Free Revenue Supply) don't cut the mustard; by 'since' I mean months away from SEVEN years. What we've got 'ere is a 'scheme' which raises money from the markets, spends it on hope and has lost the lot. Lonrho's management "perhaps" has greater hope than shareholders and certainly has enormous powers of persuasion. By 'perhaps' I mean that maybe Lonrho's 'face' is not the same as its mind. Indeed, I endorse Gorgeous Emma's decision to flog 'er options. After all, Em's options were issued on 30 April 2007 at 34.5p (market price at the time was 32.5p). This was an ethical incentive to improve company performance, align shareholders' interests with hers and hence incentivise her. How did she do? Well, incentivised Gorgeous Emma and her band of merry men led the price all the way down to 1.9p. How did the shareholders feel? Hmm. What did Lonrho's management do? On 13 January 2009, they repriced their own share options downwards - to 6.5p - to incentivise themselves. Unfortunately, shareholders who had invested in Lonrho at prices higher than 30 April 2007 were not granted this option. Em's present decision, with the price rapidly heading back towards 1.9p, is therefore totally understandable. What is not, is that in the public accounts it reads that Em's options are only exercisable until 29 April 2012. Any chance of getting some more 'anoraks' on this BB? I do so love sunshine but when it's bucketing down and the whole sky is black I just find it so difficult to discuss rainbows. Is Lonrho's demise imminent? For shareholders, hope is writ daily larger. kibu

Nah! C'mon. LONR's already said they're going to consolidate RUBI's accounts in theirs as a 'subsidiary.' With such a large shareholding and comedy due Geoff & Dave on the RUBI board it's far from "arm's length." >>>So if it goes pearshaped then it won't hugely hurt them<<< Well, as above, Turog. In addition, Fly540 has been valued as £55m 'into' this group (based on 1.15bn shares at 4.8p). How's that going to be carried on the balance sheet? Chas and Dave would also lose a fair bit of wonga if it went pearshaped. BTW what's the latest RUBI share price? Correct me if I'm wrong but China is the biggest producer of pears and Australia doesn't figure? kibu

All this optimism and hope is sweet but do you guys live in the real world? The Lonrho bid is now way below when the fat Ozzie cuckoo started booting out his fellow nesters. At that time there was 'legacy' value in the company far greater than that recorded on the balance sheet. It's now all disappeared and the P&L 'Retained earnings' are redder than a Scouser's Spanish sunburn. We're coming up to the 7th anniversary of the mirror being smashed and it's high time for luck to change. But the fat cuckoo's now so obese, he's stuck. Are your hopes so forlorn? Name a single Lonrho-related company where there has been a sustained profit or a dividend or a share price increase since 2005. Lonrho is not one of them but neither is Hot Tuna, Leni Gas & Oil, Vatukuola, Solo, LonZim and, oh, this was supposed to be a challenge, not a rant. Over to you guys. Let's keep this positive. While you are checking, perhaps you'd like to review the most recent list of David Lenigas' current and past directorships and notice the unfortunate company liquidations of which he was a director. They are listed in the Rubicon Re-admission document. The latest falls in LONR's share price are steeper than I predicted. However, Fly540's soon-to-be-reported operating costs were hit by recent oil price highs as were other LONR cost-bases such as Agri - logistics and feedstuffs. Maybe others have figured this out too? The speed of the decline leads me to, IMVHO, a further 'weak sell' opinion. kibu

Turog, I appreciate that you appear to favour investment in LONR. Our group does not. Maybe inepts tomorrow but, over the last SIX YEARS+ "kibu" has proved correct. Tomorrow, of course, LONR may return, within hours, to the price it was when David Anthony Lenigas joined. Several hundreds % increase in one day? ERR? "Dave" doesn't like all that gets posted on public BBs. He has emailed "our group." It appears 'our group' and 'his group' know the same lawyers. This could get interesting. My earlier reply to you, Turog, referenced Perth. Perth is an Australian city. My BB posting reply to you was deleted. Oh, heck, maybe I never posted it, Dave? Would you like to know more about Fly540? "We " have quite a large file. If you are a ramper, mate, BEWARE. What we will write about Lonrho will always be factual, verifiable and probably DIRE. It's just the way the facts pan out. Derampers - NOUS? Absolument NON! Again, look at iii.co.uk and perhaps ask Gemma Western (Customer Services Manager) about "outside pressures." Their LONR BB has predictably DIED recently. kibu

Turog, WADR, my earlier posting made clear reference to the low and the high of this share under the present management. It's odd to write "This is all a long time ago." It is within the timeframe of the present management. The point about 350% UP from the low or 2500% to get back to where it was is, IMVHO, extremely relevant to anyone considering an investment. What Lonrho's present management said/wrote back in 2005 and 2006 didn't happen. BTW The low was 1.9p to sell, NOT 2.5p. Not wishing to sound churlish but the 24% difference is pretty significant these days. If this is still too long a timeframe for you, consider this - today's price is less than half what it was in June 2011. "... and the whole world economics has been in a spin over the last 3 or 4 years so it is unfair to undermine the company in this way." Really? I read all Geoff and Dave's RNSs and they say that Africa is "different." The result? Even worse returns than FTSE. Get real, please. June 2011 Lonrho was above 20p. June 2012 Lonrho is 8p+. Stay in if you wish. Maybe you could invest in a few watering cans and get over to those bushes that are presently propping up the accounts? No time to respond to your Fly540 stuff but you can always trawl through the "kibu" group stuff on Interactive Investor.

I dunno, Turog et al. Present price 8p+ is over 350% UP on what it was a short while back. Stick with it? Well, it's only 6p+ up from where it was but 42p DOWN from where it was before with the current management. An 83% fall somehow doesn't seem as dramatic as a 350% climb, does it? OTOH it would take a rise of over 2500% just to get back to where the share price was a mere 4 years ago. BTW At that time Lonrho was far smaller; didn't have a bunch of "profitable" trees; had raised less than half the present capital/placing dosh; hadn't smashed two aircraft into the ground; had a smaller deficit on the equity account and, with faith, looked a possible prospect. Now, with substantial balance sheet "manoeuvering" (a - LONR's "changed" relationship to LonZim/Cambrian b - the proposed "sale" - hah hah hah - of Fly540 to RubiCON c - the "supremely healthy" bushes in Africa) coupled with the disgusting corporate trough from which the management merrily swills, anything over 8p looks a pretty rich valuation to me. Face it. Before the present management joined, Lonrho, as an operating business, was on its way down the toilet. However, they had valuable rights and assets. Lenigas, or whoever put him there, knew this. There was more legacy value back in 2005 than there is now. The balance sheet was not such a wreck. I've asked for someone to counter me. No one has. Lonrho does not make any operating profit. The enormous deficit on the P&L (following SEVEN years of terrible management and financial losses) precludes them from paying any dividend. It does not, of course, preclude them from flathering about dividends. "True value," following the latest extraordinary divestment proposals, gets ever harder to determine. Of one thing I am absolutely certain, Lonrho is no ordinary investment. kibu

It is true that Lonrho has talked about dividends next year. David Lenigas has talked about a lot of things that did not come true until much later or have still not come true. 'Dividends next year' is an enormous ask. Anyone reading this BB should check the Lonrho equity account immediately. Next, check the 'operating profit' figure. Then check that same figure in each of the years since 2006. Next? Please post your results here. I would be delighted to have a public discussion about the figures. kibu

Bitter? Moi, Turog (and others)? Mais, absolutely NON. Sore? Maybe. When you read about the headline scams of Madoff and Stanford and see how long they were able to operate at stratospheric levels of scamming, it makes you wonder about other companies. Worldcom and ENRON anyone? Closer to home we have Polly Peck. Relevant to Lonrho's management, have a look at the trading history of Hot Tuna, Vatukuola, Solo, Leni Gas & Oil and LonZim (aka Cambrian). When you're done, check out SAILS, Norse Air and Fly540 Zimbabwe. Be interested to hear your comments and anyone else's. Madoff and Stanford were in so deep and for so long yet here on LSE and AIM we get operators moving quickly in and out of companies for relatively small millions and never get caught. How is that? Are the amounts too small? Is there a powerful business world screwing innocent investors? Is there some sort of insider 'club' licking so much cream that their girths expand with each annual report? Nah, although Monsieur "BrasStrong" is far more portly than when "we" last met him. Rather than being 'bitter' I am intrigued and slowly collecting data and contacts. To date Lonrho has not impressed. Study business history. Bad management can hide their ineptitude for a long, long time. First got screwed back in 70s and guess I've finally got fed up and decided to campaign a bit now. kibu

Recent comments on this BB about dividends and success are way out of line. One poster has even complimented the present management - travesty. Total travesty. Let's introduce some real facts. 1. The present management took control over SIX years ago. 2. During their tenure the share price hit 50p. Since that time total capital invested is greater than the present total capital ie the total invested is worth less than it was 3. The current share price is around 9p - rather odd considering the enormous capital raised - 80% LOWER. 4. Any poster talking about 'dividends' should not be trusted. They plainly understand neither accounts nor UK law. They follow Lenigas' rhetoric. Talk of dividends is hubris or ignorance. I'm only interested in hard facts. Shareholders and LSE posters should NOT, however, be deceived/misled by girth-challenged Ozzie brutes. So sue me, mates. It's all in the P&L. Maybe you should read it? To get yourself some "street cred" before posting, please post the 'accumulated losses' from the equity account and explain how Lonrho will be able to pay any dividend before the Queen's next Jubilee. Oh, BTW, did anyone think that Lonrho made a profit last year? You're gullible if you did. OTOH maybe you know more about African bushes than I do? BIG FACT: Since 2005 Lonrho's directors have made a shedload of wonga for themselves while losing millions of shareholders' dosh ie they've been in power for far too long and destroyed the capital invested. Fair dinkum? kibu