Oxus vs Uzbekistan

Die heiße Phase beginnt:

"... Arbitration started 31 August 2011
May 2014 arbitration hearing completed
Claim Range $489m to $1250m ..."

"...Debt / dilution through 'unclear' debt issues = £15m
Legal costs @ £10m cost BUT estimated guaranteed multiple of 7 times) = £70m
Total indebtedness = £85m x Dollar rate of $1.60 = $136m
Assume breakeven at £11m market cap = x $1.6 = $18m
So approx $155m is breakeven at todays Price ..."

$160m = 1p

$192m =5p

$232m = 10p

$312m = 20p

$392m = 30p

$472m = 40p

$552m = 50p

 

http://uk.advfn.com/cmn/fbb/thread.php3?id=28868581

nobull:"...
Attended AGM and met, among others, Nick2412 and Matthew Palmer. Mr Shead was as combative as ever and took a swipe at conspiracy theorists with regard to the loan notes. He denied knowing the meaning of ‘loan note holders walking off with the locked-up value of the claim’, something which I found surprising. His strategy to make it seem less bad was to discuss other cases where you wouldn’t expect the CLN holders to walk off with the bulk of the locked-up value of our claim e.g. if an award is declared before the, what he called, ‘drop dead’ date of 31/12/15.

Mr Shead expressed confidence the loan note holders would extend the terms rather than, as he put it, lose out themselves. Personally, I have difficulty imagining the idea that loan note holders face such a binary outcome – i.e. equity and loan note holders all benefit or we all lose out; I can imagine other scenarios where one class benefits and another class doesn’t but then in his terms I presume I remain a conspiracy theorist.

On the identity of the loan note holders, he gave a slightly evasive answer: ‘if it is in the public domain then you can know who they are and if it isn’t then you can’t’ or words to that effect. In other words he wasn’t going to tell us, but if people already knew then that was their good fortune. Against that, he expressed confidence the loan note holders, at least the ones he had talked to, would extend the debt repayment date. With that rider of ‘the ones he had talked to’, I worried that there might be some who would not be happy to extend, but later he seemed to indicate that they all would be happy to. The impression he seemed to want to convey was that they all would be bonkers not to, but arrogant as it may be I have to disagree with him on that.

On Said Ashurov’s family receiving financial help, he said ‘no’ (without any trace of guilt or shame – and I didn’t seek to evoke any either). He said Said was employed by AGF, and not by Oxus, and that we needed to conserve cash at this all important time. Either RS or RW pointed out that efforts were continuing to get Said released. RW mentioned he had spoken to the newly appointed British ambassador to Tashkent yesterday (the ambassador is scheduled to take up his appointment shortly?). It was pointed out that Said must be due soon for consideration under an amnesty, given the high proportion of his sentence he has served. It was also pointed out that it would be difficult to send money to him personally as it would be taken off him by the Uzbeks. It was stated that the Uzbeks claim that Said has nothing to do with the case against Oxus, but on that Oxus staff take a different view. (This is one point I agree on with Oxus on – hostage taking is completely normal for the region, in my experience – Iran 78/79).

On whether we had sufficient funds, Mr Shead said ‘Yes and No’. It all depends how long the whole thing is going to take. He remained ready for every trick in the book to be used by the other side not to pay anything. I think he said (or implied) funding arrangements could be called on if necessary. He said rights issues were pointless if the main shareholders weren’t interested in taking them up. (RAB weren’t interested, in the past, in taking them up, hence the reason for Darwin?). Mr Shead said he would be pleased to get rights issues away at 10p and asked if there were any takers in the room, and then confirmed to himself that there weren’t any).

Mr Gibbons was described as a private investor resident in Cape Town, who rang up occasionally for updates – it was stressed Mr Gibbons does not have inside information!). His investment decision was apparently his own, and has nothing to do with Mr Shead. Mr Gibbons has apparently invested or backed Mr Shead in other ventures in the past.

Oxus occupies a cramped serviced office. It didn’t buy it. Oxus needs all 5 of its employees – there is plenty for them to do. Mr Shead emphasised keeping running costs as low as possible. In this context he said Mr Prior was not remunerated and yet took on the responsibility of being a non-executive (that was a strong reason to re-elect him, to say nothing of his long history with the company – and extensive knowledge of it?). Mr Prior is resident in Australia, but location presumably does not prevent him satisfactorily exercising proper oversight of everything.

The highlights of the meeting for me were to learn in private a) the Yukos and Gold Reserve Inc cases are two that we should take heart from: the former apparently for the inability of the unclean hands doctrine to derail the case and the latter for the use of DCF to value non-producing assets). (the person giving me that info, however, did not mention the Kenyan Duty Free case, but maybe that has nothing to do with unclean hands?) b) that if justice is to be done, it will be almost impossible for the Tribunal to award zero.

The guidance about 31/12/14 arose apparently from Mr Shead taking that view on the basis of his impressions from taking part in the hearings and from talking to lawyers. He acknowledged his forecast had come to bite his behind badly, and he stated he would not make that mistake again (or words to that effect).
Shareholders maybe need to make a mental note, I wonder, that we owe people bonuses and salaries, etc. when the case is over (Mr Prior, Mr Wilkins).
Mr Shead continues to think poorly of chat sites. Matthew Palmer gave him the chance to hit out at the rumours Mr Shead hates most. He mentioned the rumours about Oxus having bought an office.

At a guess, if I had to list Mr Shead’s pet hates, they would be:
Chat sites
People who do not accept dilution is a reasonable cost (he mentioned the alternative of going bust)
Conspiracy theorists.

Mr Shead emphasised that if anyone knew of a better way to run the company, in the present circumstances, that he was open to their ideas. In a private conversation it was mentioned the Uzbeks had never lost a case (they settled beforehand in the case of Newmont). There seemed to be a determination not to let the Uzbeks off the hook. There were other things said in private conversations that made it clear I have been wrong in the past to read anything more into RNSs about reasons for resignations other than what was stated in the RNS (ample evidence emerged but I don’t think it right to go into detail here – I was wrong in the past). This information wasn’t put to me as a deliberate correction either, but it emerged in a conversation I overheard).

I can’t think of anything else at present, but if I do I’ll post it another day. I wasn’t satisfied by the loan note answer, but maybe I’ve got that wrong too. I am happy to continue holding my 1.3m odd, come what may, I suppose, mainly because I think an award should come before the ‘drop dead’ date. No, I don’t expect enforcement to occur in time for the drop-dead date.

Oh, the length of time the case is continuing was thought to be due to the complexity of the case. News to me was that there are really FOUR separate, distinct cases. I can only think of three: Khandiza, AGF1 and AGF2. I wonder if the fourth was Numakron (Vysokolovoltnoye). Hope this helps."

 

http://www.lse.co.uk/SharePrice.asp?shareprice=OXS

VladLenin: "...I think I am stating a concern for most investors, when I say that our single largest worry is whether Oxus corruptly paid someone at the start of the business, which would render the contract null and void, and from which we could lose. This is how White & Case won the arbitration between the Uzbek state and MTT. I have made a little additional research. The key difference between the cases is who was paying for the litigation. For MTT, they were paying themselves, so they had entire control over their finances and expenditure on their lawyers. For Oxus, the legal fees are being paid by a funder Calunius. There is an interesting case, for when funding goes wrong, of S&T Oil Equipment and Machinery Ltd against the state of Romania. Here the law company King & Spalding acting for S&T were having their fees paid by Juridica Investment Ltd, a litigation funder. Some way into the arbitration, some mis-deed on the part of S&T was identified, which resulted in King & Spalding withdrawing from the case. King & Spalding and S&T Oil notified Juridica of their falling-out. In November 2009, Juridica asserted that S&T Oil made ‘material misrepresentations’ about the facts underlying the case and refused further funding. The funder demanded ‘immediate reimbursement of all sums’ paid to S&T Oil under the investment agreement. Without funding, the case came to a halt and was dismissed. What is my conclusion of this story? If, as some people have concerns, that Oxus had paid a bribe, which gave a clear case that the contract was null and void, as happened with MTT, then we could presume that the lawyers would have informed the funders, as happened with this case S&T Oil above. We know that this has not happened, and so my opinion is that there has been no clear case determined which would render the case void. You can read about this on http://www.ibanet.org/Article/...804e46e3-dfc0-4966-b16e-31627803970c about half way down, in the box. I remain convinced that we have a solid case, which will deliver a good, indeed very good, result to us long suffering shareholders. It ain't long now..... (I hope) "  

http://uk.advfn.com/news/UKREG/2015/article/68704523

"...The directors remain confident that the Arbitral Tribunal will, in the very near future, rule in the Group's favour and that fair compensation will be awarded for both the AGF and Khandiza mining assets, which were blatantly misappropriated by the Republic of Uzbekistan. In this respect, the Board will continue to take whatever steps it deems necessary to ensure the return of value to the Company's long-suffering stakeholders. ..."