My thanks to Frank Little for his eagle eye in spotting something was amiss with the shares and share dealings in African Potash. I am grateful. http://ffrancsais.blogspot.co.uk/
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If you'd invested any of your hard earned money in African Potash Limited (AFPO) last year you could be forgiven for feeling a bit peeved. The company's shares were the poorest performing shares on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) according to Research Tree.
https://www.research-tree.com/blogs/insights/best-and-worst-performing-companies-on-aim-in-2016
"The worst performer of the year was fertilizer company African Potash Ltd whose share price collapsed from 3.3p to 0.123p after it issued 235m shares to raise £500k, leading to Cantor resigning as its nominated adviser".
The share price has shown much better fortune, in September 2012 being as high as £7.63, £2.85 in September 2015, then a march almost lemming-like over a cliff. In December 2016 dealing in the company's shares on the AIM were suspended with the share price at £0.06.
The shares are currently traded (27 February 2017) on something called the NEX Exchange at a mid-range price of £0.03.
This abject performance from a company that only this time last year was promising far better days ahead has led to some scathing comments online. In April 2016 the website Share Prophets accused the company of being "lying bastards" following announcements earlier in 2016 of customer orders. The accusation was that the company was deliberately share ramping ahead of a placing.
http://www.shareprophets.com/views/20235/african-potash-no-no-no-you-are-lying-bastards
Then in August 2016, two further online criticisms, the latter being Share Prophets again:
https://shareinvestors.co.uk/2016/08/19/african-potash-its-not-just-the-fertiliser-which-appears-to-stink-here/
The second of these was dated 30 August and contained an open letter to Peter Hain who is a non-executive director in the company.
Just two days later the writer, Tom Winnifrith (Share Prophets) received a solicitor's letter from Memery Crystal, acting for the company. The letter threatened legal action unless steps were taken to withdraw alleged defamatory claims against the company and pay costs and damages. Winnifrith did not accede to the requests. No action was pursued by the company. Winnifrith called their bluff. In fact he also called them "crony capitalist bastards and fraudsters". A man not to mince his words.
http://www.shareprophets.com/views/23447/memery-crystal-pens-a-suicide-note-for-african-potash-lawyers-letter-for-tom-winnifrith
Moving on to January 2017, Winnifrith published a further article, referring to our local Orange Lord as "Lord Peter Hain of Sleaze". No further solicitor's letter has come his way. For more information, and entertainment value then do read all these links.
http://www.shareprophets.com/views/26308/african-potash-accounts-a-question-for-lord-peter-hain-of-sleaze
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Other investors recently are highly critical of AFPO for its lack of communication about just what is happening right now. Here's a post from an investors' forum as recently as 23 February 2017. Clearly, something is seriously amiss in this company.
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In the latest Company Report for year ending 30 June 2016 the auditors, RSM UK Audit LLP state they are not able to provide an audit opinion on the financial statements made by the firm's directors due to insufficient appropriate audit evidence, and the existence of "material uncertainty" which may cast doubt on AFPO being able to continue as a going concern. The company made a loss of $6.1m in year ending 30 June 2016 and lost $8.8m the year before, with net current liabilities of $2.3m and is reliant on trading cashflows that are not contracted and equity finance not committed. In other words, it looks like AFPO are right up shit creek in the Congo without a paddle.
http://www.africanpotash.com/corporatedocuments.aspx
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Every cloud has a silver lining. That annual report of the Company shows that on his date of appointment to the Company board, 1 December 2015, Peter Hain was awarded 10 million warrants for company shares at prices between 3p and 8p, exercisable by 2020. In the staff costs for that accounting year he is recorded as receiving $32,000 and share based payments of $187,000. Just remember - he wasn't appointed until 1 December 2015. The accounting year ended 30 June 2016. That's just seven months by my reckoning.
Readers may be interested to see the other areas of work declared by Lord Hain in the Lords Register of Interests. These do not include his incomes from public speaking, interviews, TV appearances, book writing and other hobbies. Or his income as a UK pensioner. Or his very sizeable public sector pension as a former MP and Minister. Or his extremely generous tax free payments of £300 a day for attending the House of Lords.
Clearly, Lord Hain no longer has need of those Parliamentary expenses that helped to pay his outrageous oil bills a few years back.
One could say life is good right now for him. If you value the quality of your life by your bank balance that is.
Thankfully, not all of us do.
