St. Lawrence (STL010, STL030, STLFA)

[Enumerate]

St Laurence running out of money

http://www.nzx.com/news/managed-fund...g-out-of-money

[Dr_Who]

Game over?

[Enumerate]

I have just started looking at this. It is insanely complex.

St. Lawrence Ltd is the 34% owner and Manager of St. Lawrence Property & Finance Ltd.

St. Lawrence Property & Finance Ltd has undergone a name change to Irongate Property Ltd. and is presently listed in the Unlisted market.

The SLT0x0 and STLFA's are debt obligations of the new Irongate Property Ltd.

There are a rash of related party obligations, joint ventures and management agreements. This is not a good sign.

What is completely inexplicable is that Irongate has been buying the STL0x0's on the open market. Now why would they use cash to purchase, at near par, significant amounts of the secured debt?

The press release says St Lawrence Ltd cannot meet it's obligations. On the face of it ... this is not too much of a worry to St Lawrence Property and Finance Ltd ... but why are the STL0x0 and STLFA's implied to be St Lawrence Ltd debt obligations?

To work out this mares nest of related parties ... is going to take some significant time.

Maybe Gaynor will help out with a complete analysis.

Can any of the holders of the securities clear up the mystery?

[Enumerate]

http://www.stlaurence.co.nz/news.php?news=142

It looks like the troubles apply to St Lawrence Ltd and NOT to Irongate.

Further, it looks like the debenture and capital notes holders of St Lawrence Ltd are DIFFERENT from the STL0x0 and STLFAs.

There will clearly be consequences for Irongate ... but their debtholders will not be asked to convert to the new St Lawrence Ltd holding company.

[Enumerate]

http://www.nzx.com/news/3635472/St-L...defies-trustee

The debt for shares swap proposal would release Mr Podmore from his personal guarantee to investors under the moratorium agreement, Mr Lancaster said.

To sweeten the moratorium deal, Mr Podmore transferred $10 million in personal assets to St Laurence and offered a further limited guarantee for $20 million offered through his investment vehicles in the event the company was put in receivership.

Ahhh, now we see what the real agenda is ...

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/st-laur...vership-122167

Assets in Wife's names

Podmore and O'sullivan have about $100mill of assets in there wifes names and each has a mortgage free $4 mill plus home the list of property assets is staggering
What ever happened to the property company in Brisbane?
Come on boys what about tipping $50 mill into the pot!

What?!? Property developers squirreling away assets in trusts while the punters face the music in the wrecked equity vehicle grossly mismanged by the developers? No, this cannot be true!

[lewinsky]

Barry Graham and Paul Byrnes from Dorchester would be able to give you the run down on St Laurence.

They would have done a huge amount of due diligence on this when they invested $30 mill into St Laurence and then wrote it down to zero two years later.

Good call?

[Enumerate]

Yes, I remember this deal. What spectacular idiocy! It was obvious, at the time, that cash was King (no pun intended - or was it that "King was cash" (after his Bridgecorp deal) - anyway).

Dorchester squandering it's lifeblood was such a newbie error - that such people can be appointed to run finance businesses is beyond all rational explanation.

[Enumerate]

http://www.chrislee.co.nz/index.php?page=taking-stock

The venerable Chris Lee (apparently related to Sandra Lee, a St Lawrence director) has blogged on the impending insolvency.

Incredibly, he seems to delight in the prospect in the removal of the trustee from the situation (at a saving of $200,000 per annum). There is no substantive discussion on the lapsing of the Podmore personal guarantee (a consequence of the proposal), the desirability of investigating the massively complex related party transactions that liquidation would bring, enforcement of recovery by debt seniority, or any other issue.

He notes that Irongate is a separate legal entity. However, it is likely that there will be consequences for Irongate - lapsing of management contracts, etc. There is no analysis of the scope of opportunity, here, for Irongate to escape the St Lawrence hooks.

It was a footnote ... so maybe this explains why there is a complete lack of analysis.

I wonder how much Chis Lee received in commissions, if anything, from all the client money he directed to St Lawrence?

Looks like we will have to wait for Gaynor to provide the first cut of serious analysis.

[sharer]

What is implication for NAP unit holders i wonder? NAP is "managed" by StL & Podmore. Trades at about 40-50% "issue value".
Thanks Enumerate & others for your attempts at a rational description of the masters at play.
More simply, from radio news reports, it sounded as though the only real residual value in the whole mess of interlocking entities may turn out to be the several management contracts held by "StL" . Though which entity has which contract(s) i've no idea. They're apparently worth a few million $/yr, & it sounds as though the masters may be relying on that steady trickle to keep the whole enterprise alive. They seem to regard Perpetual Trustees as the greatest risk to their survival, & imagine they can hold out long enough for the property market to recover. Very ominous, on any view of the possible facts.

[p2r]

Perpetual has put St L in receivership. http://www.stlaurence.co.nz/news.php?news=144 It will be interesting if they can sort out the inter related stuff, one selling loans to the other etc. I think St L needed Irongate to take off but too many development loans for that. iron gate needed NAP to take off. And selwyn Cushing is involved ... might be looking to buy up one of them. Anyway Irongate is obviously going to keep going as they are buying back their securities now at a discount rather than pay back full in a few months. I think sharetrader overall has had the right view over the years on most of these guys going back to feltex, DPC etc