We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
The land which borders Rushden Lakes on the West side was bought by LXB3 Partners LLP and recently sold to Anonymous Ltd, a company owned by Timonty Walton. Timothy Walton is the CEO of LXB Retail Properties PLC's fund manager. Is the purchase of this land by the fund manager even ethical seeing it is so closely link to the fund and the fund manager has used knowledge of the funds activities to purchase this site. So current shareholders are paying the fund manager fees in order for it to purchase land for its own account. Is this even ethical?
An outside property management company is appointed to manage the building and collect rent. The fund pays for this. What value is the fund manager contributing to the asset at this point to justify the management charge? The longer the funds manager takes to sell the asset the more management fees they will receive. They are then compensated for failure. The Directors of LXB Retail Properties PLC earned £305,000 for the y/e 30.09.2016. If you compare that the fund manager earned from the fund, £4,632,039 for y/e 31.03.16 it is clear where the power and expertise are concentrated. The directors should represent shareholders, but in this instance they are just rubber stamping decisions taken by the fund manager. When the remaining assets are transferred to a new company the management fee structure should be reviewed otherwise management can take forever to sell the assets and milk the fund try by charging management fees until the end of time. Management fees should be reduced to 0.5% in the new company if the fund manager wants to share in the upside and there should be a time limit placed on being able to charge management fees. If the fund manager say they tie everything up withing a year they shouldn't benefit if they fail to achieve it.
Further to my previous post, the total management fees paid by the fund to the fund manager from the 1st of April 2011 to 31 March 2017 (includes an estimate for y/e 31.03.2017)is £29,153,075. The take home pay for the same period for the fund manager (after all office overheads) is £21,763,769. So the fund manager made £21,763,769 during the mentioned period. Now you can appreciate that the fund manager benefits extremely if there are delays in construction projects etc. The fund's original intended life span was 5 years and we are more two years past that. By failing to complete projects in time and selling them, the fund manager ensures that they will keep receiving massive management fees.Shareholders get hammered when there is a delay in completing projects, but the fund manager benefits from it. How are the fund manager's interests aligned with the shareholders in this scenario? The Stafford Riverside Project is complete and the final tenants will shortly move in, but the fund manager will keep charging management fees on this asset until it is sold, despite contributing any further value to the asset.
Did some research. Management fees paid by LXB Retail Properties PLC to LXB3 Partners LLP. The first number is the gross management fees paid by LXB Retail Properties Plc (the fund) to LXB3 Partners LLP, the second is the take home amount for LXB3 Partners LLP partners after paying for all office overheads etc and the third number is the take home pay for Tim Walton, the highest earning partner of LXB3 Partners LLP. 31/03/2011 - £2,402,212/£1,459,124/£;372,583 31/03/2012 - £4,250,829/£3,534,442/£;710,291 31/03/2014 - £4,924,745/£4,166,678/£;890,467 31/03/2015 - £4,091,349/£3,242,851/£;645,033 31/03/2016 - £4,632,039/£3797,117/£805,907 31/03/2017 estimate - £4,500,000/£3,500,000
Year ended 30 September 2016 - LXB Retail Properties PLC These numbers says it all: Fund management fees paid to fund manager - £4,684,290 Costs recharged to fund by fund manager - £109,815 Directors' fees - £305,000 Loss before tax for the fund - £15,144,695 LXB3 Partners LLP (fund manager) Year ended 31 March 2016 results Members' remuneration charged as an expense - £3,797,117 After paying for all office related expenses the fund manager was able to distribute £3,797,117 to the 6 partners. I wish I could of invested in LXB3 Partners LLP instead of LXB Retail Properties PLC as this fund manager makes a massive profit even if the fund loses £15,144,695. Any delay in the completion of projects causes a big loss for shareholders, but extending the life of the fund means that the fund manager can cream off more management fees for longer. The management won't reach the performance hurdle, so they have zero incentive to wrap up the fund quickly. The fund was never set up to benefit shareholders. A case in point is the delay at the Brocklebank development. The fund manager gets paid a management fee for assets under management, not NAV. So even if the development has been forward sold, the fund manager will receive management fees of the value on the project until it is finalised. So, the delay caused a loss for shareholders, but for the fund manager, even if was not intended by them, the delay will end up with them earning more management fees compared to if the project was finished on time. The only winner in this scenario is the fund manager. The massive management fees charge is a real drag on the fund and the net asset value of the fund will drop as assets as forward sold, but the management fees will still be based on assets under management. So you can end up with the distorted world where the value of the fund could be £40m but the fund manager is still entitled to almost £5m in management yearly fees. The fund manager is the only winner here. Shareholders are being shafted big time. And now the fund manager will propose transferring the assets which can't be sold before March 2017 to a new vehicle and then they want to share in the upside still charging management fees. Go to the Companies House Beta website and search for LXB3 Partners LLP. I'm don't have time at the moment, but I'm sure the fund manager has earned more than £30m in fund management fees during the life of LXB Retail Properties Plc.
More director share buys. The directors and management team now own around 15.35% of the company. Does anyone smell a buyout? I'm sure that the directors and management will not want to sell assets in the current market environment and it will be worth taking the company private and selling the assets at the best possible time. An offer of around 70p will convince most shareholders to sell.
Update - £3m hit to NAV. Only £65m cash receipts instead of expected £75m. Dividend will be circa 38.5p compared to the expected 45p. This came out of the blue.
I would like it if the Board was more transparent about how the hurdle is actually calculated. I wonder if shareholders realise that any shares bought back from 1 January 2016 are "cancelled" for hurdle calculations. Distributions (like the one planned for April 2017) will dramatically reduce the weighted average capital on which the 12% hurdle is calculated. Shareholders are being ****_k over big time. This is a undeserved transfer of shareholder wealth from the shareholders to the Investment Manager and the Board should be ashamed. In time we'll see how much the Investment Manager is going to benefit from the change in the incentive scheme. This is not going to be based on their performance during the next 15 months, but more on financial engineering. I can see through the Board and the IM and I'm amazed that not more shareholders are up in arms.
Will anyone attend the AGM? I would appreciate it immensely if the following question could be posed to the Chairman. "Why was the change in the Investment Manager's incentive scheme linked to the proposal to extend the fund to April 2017? By linking the change in the Investment Manager's incentive scheme to the only proposal that makes commercial sense it does not give shareholders a say in whether they agree with the change in the incentive scheme or not. Why are asset write downs included in the NAV of 101p at 1 January 2016? If any increase in asset values are included in the performance measurement from the 1st of January 2016, then any write-downs since that day should be as well." The proposal should not have been structured this way and shareholders are being strong-armed into accepting the change in the incentive scheme. In my view the Chairman was extremely weak in not standing up to the Investment Manager. The investment manager is already going to get £4.3m to sell the assets that are left in the fund. This is a cash grab and I want the Chairman to own up to why he agreed to this. There is a lot of work to be done, but that's why they're getting a £4.3m management fee. I would be very interested to hear what the Chairman says.
All the info re the change in incentive structure can be found on LXB Retail Properties Plc's website under news. The change in incentive structure forms part of the proposals to be voted on at the AGM & EGM which is penciled in for the 29th of February.
The change in the incentive structure (more specifically using the NAV of 101p at January 2016 as the baseline NAV when calculating the hurdle) is linked to the proposal to extend the fund to April 2017. Shareholders can't vote on the change in the incentive structure in isolation. The proposal to extend the fund is the only logical proposal as it will maximise shareholder wealth, but if you vote for this proposal you automatically agree to the change in the incentive structure. In my view the proposal to extend the fund to April 2017 should not have been coupled with the change in the incentive structure as the shareholders are now strong-armed into accepting it and it doesn't give them ability to accept or reject the proposed change in isolation.
I still think it is very sneaky to try and change the incentive structure during the last year of the fund. The IM is already getting c£4m plus in management fees. They failed to achieve the hurdle that was set up at the fund's initiation, now they change the rules to fit their performance. The IM has enough shares and don't need to be motivated by reducing the hurdle. This is a cash grab and they are taking shareholder's funds from them. If they wanted to receive a performance bonus then they should have achieved the original targets. So the IM was in fact guaranteed a performance bonus, irrespective of what they achieved and the original incentive structure was in fact bull**** because it was always going to be adjusted to make sure that the IM got a handsome performance bonus. Again, reward for failure. I for one will be voting against the change in the incentive structure. Paying them c£4m in management fees and given them the freedom to start managing other funds. Absolutely absurd. Then they will also be getting £1m a year until Rusden is built. A main contractor is going to build out Rusden and believe me, £1m a year to manage a main contractor is ridiculous. Last year the IM was not going to get a performance fee because they did not achieve the performance targets. Now they will easily walk away with C£8m. It doesn't matter how you look at it, the C£8m is going to be taken from shareholders. For shareholders who have been here since 2009, like me, this is a very bitter pill to swallow.
Director PDMR Shareholding (29 September 2015) Director PDMR Shareholding (28 September 2015) Director PDMR Shareholding (25 September 2015) Director PDMR Shareholding (24 September 2015) Director PDMR Shareholding (23 September 2015) Director PDMR Shareholding Replacement (22 September 2015) Director PDMR Shareholding (22 September 2015) Director PDMR Shareholding (15 September 2015)
The fund had an initial life of 5 years. I wonder why the B&Q building in Greenwich was recently purchased. I would have thought that all the asset are being sold at this late stage and the funds returned to the shareholders. The directors and management team of LXB keep buying shares because they know that at this price it is a steal. The NAV for Sept 2015 should be in the region of 100 - 105 pence per share. The results will probably be published around January 2016. I think this share is a great buy with low volatility. The expected future uplift in NAV has a very low risk exposure.
Bought in at a way too high price and had an average of about £10. Sold today and made a loss of £4,400, which is way lower than the £16,250 I was down a few months back. The sole reason I sold is because I personally would not buy Superdry clothing anymore and I viewed the £4,400 loss as a lucky escape and a learning experience. French Connection is a perfect example of what can happen if it all goes tits up. Supergroup has large overheads and if the clothing goes out of fashion the impact could be dramatic on the bottom line. The business could expand internationally and go from strenght to strenght. If it does, I will be gutted that I sold too soon. At the moment I just feel a sence of relieve. The share is very volatile and I think it was way too risky for my investment profite. I'l stick to the more stable and boring shares from now. I don't want to deramp. Even if the price falls to £7.50 I will be hard pressed to invest again. My nerves just can't stand it. Could luck to all still holding.
Does anyone know at what time the results will be released? Hoping for a good day.
http://news.sky.com/story/1038642/boeing-dreamliners-grounded-by-japan-airlines