A True and Factual Account of Fraud and Corruption
Tony Bates - Chief Financial Officer
Bates 2012 Annual Report
"Following the successful covenant reset and facility amendments in December, the Group made a £253.1m pre tax profit by buying back £412.6m of debt, at an average price of £38.6per £100 nominal, for a total consideration of £159.5m. Net debt was reduced by 20% or £564.7m to £2,200.4m. The Group had £134.6m of cash after the debt buy backs and the £185.0m of par debt repayments during the year. At year end, headroom on the net debt to EBITDA covenant and on the interest cover covenant was 14% and 34% respectively. Had the debt buy back and covenant reset not taken place, the Group would still have had headroom on its previous covenants".
A rosy picture painted by Bates as Chief Financial Officer just ten months before the company was declared worthless. Bates made several further positive comments on the financial health of the Group at that time, such as "We have good cashflow" and this was supported by CEO Pocock commenting"We piggybacked our legacy business, we are our own bank – cash flow lets us self-invest," He further stated that the Nett Asset Value (NAV) of the Group was worth "Fair Value" 12p per share. Even at an incredibly cautious forward PE of just 6, Bates valued the companies shares at 72p, or a market capitalisation of £1.65 Billion.
Of course, Bates, Wigley, & Pocock didn't really care about the share price because all three of them along with the other Directors handed their shares and options back to the company in exchange for a "Cash based incentive plan" However, we will never know what the value was of these incentives because full audited accounts for that period were never produced. How very convenient. But why was Tony Bates retained as Financial Director of the ‘new’ ‘hibu until 2 June 2014, yet unable/unwilling to provide the company accounts for the ‘old’ hibu plc which fell due on 31 March 2014 and have remained outstanding ever since?
It was Bates's decision to stop purchasing the company debt on the secondary market. In fact, had he continued to do that, the price of secondary debt purchased on the market dropped to as low as 18% of face value, meaning that in the space of just a few years the entire debt could be wiped out, leaving a profitable and debt free company. This would have been instant if the Directors has accepted the $1.65 - $1.9 billion offers for the US side of the business. Also, for what inexplicable reason did Bates decide to default on a £49 million load payment when sitting on free cash flow of £248 million.
None of the above makes any commercial sense whatsoever, whichever way you look at it. The only conclusion is that Bates and his colleagues acted FRAUDULENTLY to illegally transfer ownership from the shareholders to the lenders.