The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
Reject .15p
Suspend trading
Apply for creditor protection. That can offer months of breathing space..
Shareholder fundraise instead of Anavio
Shareholder appointed director to work with restructuring/refinancing team on a shareholder focused rescue
Leew, yes good point. They did NOT advise us it was the COUNTERPARTY that terminated the letter of intent in the 18th Dec RNS. That would have been an important piece of information then, knowing who walked away.
We were left guessing even though, since it was terminated, so to was the NDA.
Clearly the BOD have been threatened with impropriety and felt the need to make a statement.
The bonds were onerous from the start and the conditions of refinancing from other sources hampered.
We all new the bonds were a bad idea except Arthur who tried to convince us they were a great deal for COPL.
If we had to buy CUDA we should have done it with a shareholder placing.
Can the BOD also explain, because we think they are incompetent.
1 Why did the JV fall through, who was it with, what terms were discussed? Was any deal ever on the table ?
2 Where did $135m debt arise. I thought it was circa $40 SL and $20 bonds
3 Why has production not increased with the upgrades.
4 Why did Cowan resign.
RBM. Anavio care about themselves, and when I said they don't care about COPL I meant COPL shareholders. ( we own COPL, but only for a very short time longer)
Anavio have trashed our market cap and shareholders will be left with nothing.
The BOD should have rejected the current proposed placement from Anavio and filed for creditor protection.
That would be more in shareholders interest that what is happening now.
OR, why didn't they just raise $2.5 from a shareholder placement? They are NOT working in the interests of shareholders(their PRIMARY role)
Why did the BOD see fit to keep going back to the bondholders for funding.
It was supposed to be a short term "very good deal"(As Art alluded to). Allowed us to purchase CUDA. Was supposed to be a bridging loan !!
Shareholders could have easily funded all of the subsequent bond extensions/placements.
Why did the BOD go down this path ?
They sold the previous placement on straight away to a third party, whilst resetting the bonds to the new placement price.
Doing the same again no doubt.
Are the BOD not ashamed of themselves. Supposed to be working on behalf of shareholders. That is their primary function.
We need questions answered. Why did the JV fall through. A VERY low ball offer from the JV accepted would be far superior than where we are now.
Does no other oiler want any kind of farm in. I find this hard to belief. Wyoming is a happening place.
RBM, can you get an injunction to stop the 0.015 placement to allow pi's to fund it.
Seems like the SL and Anavio are running the show right now. We have no CEO. Our last one was useless and skulked off.
Who at COPL is actually taking charge and making decisions right now?
We have massive assets that are going to be sold off in a fire sale for no other reason than it will work out fine for the SL and Anavio. Shareholders will be left with nothing.
Don't know why we couldn't have raised money via Primary Bid or other similar funding platforms.
Why did we have to keep going back to Anavio. Trashed the SP and caused massive dilution each time.
We are giving over half the company away for $2.5m this time!
Can this be stopped? Shareholders could easily raise $2.5m
I think an important point to consider is who is Peter Kravitz actually working for?
"In concert with the Financing, COPL and its affiliates entered into a Forbearance Agreement with its existing Senior Credit Facility Lender and appointed Peter Kravitz of Province Fiduciary Services as Chief Restructuring Officer."
If he is working for COPL his main concern should be for shareholders. Unfortunately I fear that may not be the case.
I would imagine the SP will stabilize around these levels now for the time being.
I don't think much will happen for a while. The senior lender has given us until at least the end of February.
So what happens next.
Well we have appointed Peter Kravitz to head up the restructuring.
"Among other things, the Forbearance Agreement requires the Company to deliver a cash flow generative business plan which shall include a sales process for the Company's assets."
So if I were Peter Kravitz I would be attempting to sell off Cole Creek to the highest bidder.(hopefully pays off some/all of the SL)
Then I would ruthlessly cut costs to the bone throughout the rest of the business.
We know we are producing 1100bopd and have been doing so for the last 3 months. That is our baseline figure.
1100 x 365 days at oil of $71 = $28.5m Annual revenue. We need to cut costs commensurate with that level of trading.
If we can achieve the above we might end up a going concern.
Art, Anavio didn't put in $4m.
What they did was agree to fund $4m at a price of 4p. By the time the deal was finalised the price had come down to 2.6p
(no doubt after some forward selling by someone !!!) So even more dilution.
Anavio then immediately sold the placing shares onto a third party for 2.7p
They were effectively just a broker for some heavily discounted shares.
I imagine they will do the same thing with the .15p shares
Anavio have done this to avoid administration because they would lose control of the outcome.
Not being secured they could lose everything if an administrator sold the assets and there was only cash to pay the senior lender.
Whether shareholders would be better off in administration is a moot point. We would be behind the senior lender AND
the bondholders.
I suspect COPL will be trying to sell Cole Creek to the highest bidder to hopefully pay off at least the Senior lender.
Then we may become a going concern again, or then the bondholders may force a sale of the rest to pay off the bonds, or choose not to.
No wonder Cowan resigned. To ashamed to explain what went wrong to shareholders.
All that money spent on the upgrades and nothing to show for it. What were they doing?
Yep Anavio were crucial at the time, but it was a shame mainly the other bondholders, but partly Anavio as well, saw fit to decimate the SP and dilute the company by converting the bonds.
If they had been more patient and actually seen out the term rather than cash in early we would be in a much stronger position now. But of course that was not really their concern. They were not investors , they were money men.
It's easy in retrospect, but when the SP was flying and after COPL announced the billion barrel find at 38p Art should have done the mother of all Placings/rights issues. No bonds. Might have been a different scenario now.