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Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Did you know that Aiden Earley claims to be a devout Christian who prays for ninety minutes a day? Reading his emails one could be forgiven for doubting that but whatever. The injunction has arrived. I have been served. A nice man - pictured below - just knocked on my door and it is here.
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Comments
Phil
Re Sam Antar:-
Tips to fraudsters – God is good
J P Spaghetti
Ah – so that’s what happened to the chap who played Les in Vic Reeves Big Night Out! C’mon Jim, don’t be so tight-fisted with the royalties.
Bob
Looks to be about £5,000 worth. Walk in the park. Make sure the contents are procedurally correct. Presumably the bloke who delivered it was not part of Yodel although the dress sense suggests otherwise. I note he is pulling some sort of ID out of his pocket in order to demonstrate his bona fides to serve unless it is his Uber card. Hopefully you signed X in the right place to confirm delivery. Slightly unfair publishing his ever so serious face or maybe not given he should have been fully aware of what he was delivering and perhaps to whom.
AK47
Tom, you got to keep a video cam handy. You should record these sods to. I am sure that law firm is going to make some good money.
wildrides
isn’t that the bloke who was in the pictures on crimewatch ?
Shytot
When the server of the paperwork looks that worried, you have to wonder about the state of the plaintiff…
Presumably the prayer mat will be taking a royal bashing between now and the 11th.
Sweet Karolina
http://worthingtongroupplc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/DWStatementFinalClean05032015.pdf
Statement by Douglas Ware, CEO.
I hope the Q&A session today has answered a lot of questions. However, I want to make this
statement in order to clear up some other issues. As some shareholders may be aware, over
recent weeks a certain individual has waged an unwarranted campaign of attacks, not only
against the Company, but also against me personally. He has launched this crusade by
publishing data on the internet that was obtained illegally from some shareholders in 2013.
This involved hacking into their private and personal email accounts. He has obtained, and
used, selected emails and documents from this hacking operation to form the platform for his
vitriolic attacks. Yesterday, one of the shareholders concerned obtained an injunction from the
High Court against this individual, forcing him to withdraw the illegally obtained emails and
documents from the internet, & the files returned and/or destroyed. Of necessity, I have kept
silent until this application to Court had been heard and the injunction served.
I have never met this person, and to my knowledge he has never tried to contact me. This
individual seeks self-promotion and thrives on sensationalism, trying to destroy all that I have
achieved for shareholders here at Worthington over the last two and a half years. He has
libeled me many times in the process. When one is in possession of stolen documents, it is
easy to “cherry pick” some of them to suit one’s own agenda, and, without the benefit of all
the background information, make false claims, accusations and assumptions based solely on
supposition. This is exactly the situation in this case.
I will not deal with all his false accusations here, but the foundation of the main claim that he
believes he has against me, is based on his accusation that I have stated more than once that I
moved immediately to sever all links with Craig Whyte when I became CEO on 1st June
2012. The fact of the matter is that I have never said this at all, and I challenge anyone to
prove otherwise. It is a complete and utter fabrication, dreamt up by this man to fuel his
obsessed behavior and further his attack on the Company & me. He has, in fact, quoted from
what I have said in a statement, and Q&A session, on our website; however, this actually
proves that I did not say what he claims. He keeps repeating his own version, when I didn’t
say it at all. I think that the more he repeats his own lies, the more he believes them to be
true. It is in this light that, all his ill-informed claims, accusations and assumptions should
now be viewed in their true perspective.
I leave it to shareholders to make up their own mind as to my integrity. In the meantime I am
going to concentrate on my main goal; that of creating real value for Worthington’s loyal
shareholders.
Doug Ware
So he is not going to sue you for libel and all the other things he said he was going to do but is going to “concentrate on my main goal; that of creating real value for Worthington’s loyal shareholders.”
Was there not another now former CEO of a fraud that made a load of threats and then decided something similar?
Sweet Karolina
http://worthingtongroupplc.com/ceo-questions-and-answers/
A series of Q&A’s with Doug Ware the Chief Executive of Worthington Group plc – 5th March 2015
Q. Could you give us some more background on the connection, if any, between yourself and Mr. Whyte
A. Shareholders will be aware that I said that the biggest hurdle that the Company had to overcome in its recovery was the negative name association with Mr. Whyte. Recent attempts to undermine the Company, alleging a close current Whyte association (as opposed to historic) rather prove my point. However, at no stage did I say that I instantly severed all connection with Mr. Whyte when I joined Worthington on 1st June 2012. I said that I had met him for 15 minutes and by necessity shared the same board with him at Law Financial for a short period. Furthermore, at the time that I took over, the Company needed cash and there was not a long queue of people wanting to invest at that time. Having said that, the majority of the promised funding from Mr. Whyte did not materialize, despite my chasing him for payment, and I arranged the bulk of the Company’s funding myself. In addition, shareholders will recall from the accounts that Worthington acquired full control of Law Financial in October 2013 which necessarily involved some limited communication, probably less than a dozen emails in total and half a dozen telephone calls. That is the full extent of my dealings with Mr Whyte. I have not seen or heard from him for well over a year.
Q. Understood, what about the Fii connection?
A. I was asked by a shareholder, Mr. Earley, who I have known for over 20 years, to put together a rescue package for that company. Mr Earley is a deal negotiator and broker and his days of running any company or wanting to do so are long over. However in 2001 he had an investment in Fii Group plc (“Fii”), a fully listed Plc, which faced some serious problems. Knowing that I have an ability to solve difficult situations, Mr Earley asked me whether I would become a director to help sort out the problem at Fii. In common with many final salary pension funds, Fii had a large pension deficit, and an ailing footwear business that needed fresh financing to help in reorganisation. By the end of 2003, without any involvement whatsoever from Mr Earley, I had turned the business around, cut costs, raised over £4 million of fresh capital, and reached a court approved compromise with the pension fund, with OPRA ( the pension regulator’s) full knowledge and subject only to shareholder approval. Shortly prior to the shareholder vote at the AGM, Faupel Trading Plc (“Faupel”), an AIM listed company approached Mr Earley and other shareholders with a view to purchasing the footwear business for a price that appeared to Mr Earley et al to offer a better deal for shareholders. Despite warnings from me that it would come to nothing, Mr Earley and the other shareholders, amounting to more than 25% of the company’s share capital, voted against the Board’s proposal for the fund raising & settlement, I required a majority of 75% in favour to complete the transaction. As it turned out, Faupel did not to have the cash to complete the transaction and, with dismay, a heavy heart, and at great personal financial loss to myself, I had no alternative other than to place Fii into administration in June 2004. For my part I had completed the job that I had set out to do three years earlier; however, if shareholders then voted against the solution I had arranged, there was nothing further I could do. My rescue proposals, and the fact that they were voted down at the EGM, resulting in the ultimate liquidation of Fii are all a matter of public record. Needless to say, for some considerable time, I was not on speaking terms with Mr Earley. He himself lost a considerable amount of money with the demise of Fii, but eventually he had the grace to apologise. Only in the light of that apology, was I willing to listen to his request to sort out the mess at Worthington – on condition that neither he, nor Craig Whyte would interfere in any way with the management or decision-making of the Company, or vote against Board proposals put to the General Meeting by the board. It was as a favour to Mr Earley and his family, that I agreed to take on such a difficult task. It would have been far easier to start a new Plc from scratch, without a pension fund deficit or the negative Craig Whyte name association, and float that on the market instead. It would also have taken far less time.
Q. Some emails have emerged that appear to show that Mr Earley was proposing deals for the Company to do back in 2012 and 2013. It has also been said or heavily implied that Mr Earley was a disqualified director at the time.
A. I would like to point out a number of things on this regard. Firstly, the emails were stolen and any posting of them has been highly selective in order to give a negative spin on any given issue. Out of 1,000s of emails and hundreds of proposals, the least attractive have been published. Secondly, whilst Mr Earley is a deal negotiator and broker, I hear a good many proposals from a lot of different sources. Only one of the deals that were proposed by him was actually pursued. As regards his disqualification, he was not disqualified at the time. But, even had he been, his activities do not involve running the Company. He has been granted High Court permission to be a director of Sevco 5088 Ltd so, had his activities at Worthington involved directing any operations, I would have insisted that he obtained Court approval for that too. But the fact is, he is not a director, or a shadow director, and he won’t be invited to be one.
Q. What about the proposed 6.5% commission?
A. This has been taken entirely out of context and actually related to a loan agreement that I had made with Mr Earley a long time before I had any involvement with Worthington. The interest that he was going to pay on the loan was going to be primarily by way of a share of what he earned in the future. Despite his faults, Mr Earley has made seven figure sums in the past. In fact, my remuneration from the Company from the start has been by way of warrants and director’s remuneration which are all fully disclosed in the accounts. I have not received anything at all from Mr Earley relating to Worthington or anyone else, nor will I in the future.
Q. You appear to have a company that shares the same registered office with a company that appears to belong to Mr Whyte
A. European and Asian Ltd has been around for many years. The company said to be associated with Mr Whyte is a relatively new company. Mr Whyte used this formation agent because I had once recommended them to Mr Earley and he recommended Mr Whyte use them. Incidentally, the relationship between Mr Earley and Whyte is not what it once was. I’ll leave it at that for the time being.
Q. What about the Pension Fund Loan to Rangers
A. As shareholders will recall, this loan did not complete and we hope to be able to update shareholders on this soon. Specifically, I note the suggestion that an invoice for £35,000 in this regard had been sent to the Company for payment rather than to the Pension Fund. This is another example of the ill-informed actually wanting to see something negative, when in fact, the invoice was never accepted, or paid. In any event, it was only payable if the Pension Fund Loan completed, and would rightly be sent to the Company, because the Company is required under the Trust Deed to pay all Pension Fund running costs.
Q. What about the CPS developments? It has been suggested that CPS is only worth $2m
A. I do not propose to go through every one of the false accusations put forward by parties trying to distract the Company. However, yet again, as with the £35,000 unpaid invoice relating to the uncompleted Pension Fund loan, this is another example of unpleasant amateurism getting in the way of reality. CPS is a very interesting opportunity, with the potential to develop large gas reserves in a mature area of the World for Oil and Gas. We made an offer very substantially greater than $2m but not as high as CPS believed they were worth. That’s simply business. We believed that they would come back to us and accept our proposal; however, they rejected it as being too low. The claim by critics of the Company that CPS has been acquired for $2m is actually quite amusing. Whilst they may have structured a reverse takeover of a shell with a nominal value of $2m, the eventual market value will be considerably higher, we’ll have to wait & see. Incidentally, it has been suggested that we should have announced the CPS deal as being called off sooner. This would have been rather naïve. Our view was that they would come back to us at the price that we had offered. To say that the deal is off, and then shortly after, that it was back on again would have been ridiculous. Only when we were satisfied that they were not coming back, at our valuation, did we make the announcement.
Q. What about the GREP loan?
A. Shareholders will recall that we have the right to a majority interest in this company – but we will obviously only exercise that right if we are happy with the results of the exploration. In the meantime it remains as a convertible loan. So far the helicopter survey results have been very encouraging; we will wait to see what the next stage brings.
Q. What can you say about the fully diluted position of the Company?
A. We have previously said that we are in negotiations to change the term of the warrants and loan notes, including numbers etc. The outcome of these negotiations will be published in the prospectus.
Q. Turning now to what shareholders are most interested in – namely completion of the prospectus and the various deals – has the recent speculation distracted the Company.
A. Without question, management time has had to be diverted from the constructive work we have been doing to deal with this instead. I’m sorry about that, but that is the reality. It is simply not possible to ignore attempts to undermine the Company to the detriment of its shareholders, creditors and pensioners. Our deal partners and new senior appointees, expect us to deal with this forcefully and conclusively. Furthermore, in the light of the unlawful interference in the Company’s business – particularly in relation to a call to a prospective deal partner – we have a commercial interest to keep our deals and appointments confidential until such time as we can announce them, or include them in the prospectus.
Q. So how long will this delay things?
A. We believe that the sum total of delay is likely to be between three and four weeks. So, for example, instead of the AGM being in March, this will now be at the end of April.
I am sorry that this delay has arisen, but my duty is to protect the interests of the Company and its stakeholders. In many ways it is fortunate that this has happened prior to our being re-listed, so that we can deal with it in a calmer fashion. We are pleased that we are still expecting to complete all the deals referred to in our announcement of 9th January 2015 – incidentally, none of which have been introduced by Mr. Whyte or Mr. Earley.
You are to blame for everything it would seem. LOL
Are you still going to do the article on the mining assets to rub a bit more salt in the wounds?
alfie
Tom….I have just read a article that you alledgedly stole £100,000 from RSH….What is the truth behind this story?…Thanks
Tom Winnifrith
Alfie
I have commented on this lie in 2 bearcasts on this site. It is quite simply untrue. I did not steal a cent from RSH – go ask Jim Mellon. Like the suggestion that I am called Cochrane, that ADVFN has ended our partnership, etc etc etc. Just untrue
T
Elrico
BTK was a devout Christian!
warun boofit
The more I read about Worthington the more I believe it to be in the public interest to investigate them. I have unfortunately learned the hard way that many AIM listed companies that raised money through equity do not exist for the benefit of its shareholders, quite the opposite. As a result of my hard learned lessons I am very reluctant to gamble anymore on the AIM markets. In my naivety ( after 30 years of not being ripped off on the main markets) I wrongly assumed that owning shares in AIM companies meant I owned a little bit of it, perhaps the value of the toilet rolls in the chief executives shithouse or maybe all the pork pies in the companies staff canteen, something tangible but the reality is that owning shares means you own nothing, I always laugh when I read on bulletin boards about ‘our gold’ or ‘our oil’ just because the peep owns ten million shares worth £ 150 . When companies went bust in the old days they used to at least send a letter to tell you your shares are now worth fuck all and that you my want to use this letter to tell the tax man but these days they dont even bother sending out letters. At least the new fashion is DYOR which in the old days I never bothered, just sticking a pin in the list was good enough, problem with DYOR is that the best we can do as as a pi is superficial and speaking to fraudulent company officers is no good ( I have done this in the past and been misled) , we need to rely on our favourite journalists but so many of them are full of crap. I dont buy on shares being recommended anymore but I do rely on being warned off from the bad eggs which is why I want this site to continue doing what its doing, it has saved me making a few bad decisions in the past two years and unfortunately there is no one else doing anything remotely similar so it is very much in the public interest that it continues operating in exactly the same way.
Larry
TW, the front of your house looks a right mess. Clean it up will ya?
Castlewolf_22
Warun,
I fully agree, I spoke to a relative a few years back about taking £800k and starting up an AIM shell after he sold his business, make some large’ish purchases in other AIM shite…..ramp them up, sell into the rise while shorting them back down spin the good word on home made websites and blogs tying the web of deceit together, ramp them up, deramp them down, offshore the business, take a couple of hundred K a year as salary, keep spinning, another year passes, rinse and repeat….dilute (a must have on AIm), rinse and repeat…..basically until we hit the billion shares in issue goal…..keep taking salary….let it drain itself dry….(see RRR or SER as perfect examples)…..I was being a bit ‘sarcastic’ about it based on what I was seeing happening with AIM a few years back (or thought I was just a bit suspicious/paranoid some might say)……but looks like 50%+ of AIM has had the same idea but actually practiced it, seems very easy to do, just immoral…..hence I too fully support Tom’s work,,,,,moreso to show the ineptitude of the Regulatory bodies who are more guilty than the perpetrators of these frauds as they turn their blind eye once again……Tom is already of legendary status, it’s early yet but the momentum is there, do you realise what you have become Tom….or are destined to be…..this is exactly what AIM needs….if the PI keeps getting their funds devalued by these maggots then there will be no PI’s willing to take up the investing….which reduces the capital available to AIM shares….affecting us all…..Smack Dealers, Convicted fraudsters, spin doctors…..requirements on the cv’s of some ‘heads’ of AIM co’s …..jeez….shirt and tie crooks
Phil
We will see what the courts make of it. The last time these fraudsters were in front of legal process, the pensions tribunal, a case invoked by the pensions regulator, the tribunal was in no doubt, they didn’t believe a single word from them.