BVI Company News

AfriOre Limited, a BVI-based company which has recently reported its financial results for the 3 -month period until May 31, 2006, announced the results of a second independent mineral resource estimate for the Akanani Platinum Project in the South Africa’s Bushveld Complex. The first  independent technical report for the Akanani Project containing the initial mineral resource estimate and other Project information   was released at the end of May, when this company received the increasing estimates for its Platinum project, and has been filed on SEDAR.

Both estimates were prepared by Snowden Mining Industry Consultants, an independent minerals consultancy group. This report was written also by Mr. Jeremy C. Witley, a “Qualified Person” who has written also the first Project report for Snowden.

The updated mineral resource estimate is based on the results of 33 diamond drill holes within a 381 hectare (”ha”) area within the P2 unit in the SPA. The estimate totals 249.1 million tonnes. The updated mineral resource extends from approximately 800 metres depth along the eastern project boundary to a selected depth of 2,000 metres in the west.

Warren Newfield, President and CEO of AfriOre, noticed in his statement that the significant increase in the mineral resource for company’s project in Akanani came just over four months  since the announcement of the initial mineral resource. He supposed that these results confirm the excellent potential of the P2 unit to support a large, long-life underground platinum mine with significant base metal credits.

Afriore continues developing the Akanani Platinum project, as one of its most prospective projects, and has commenced additional drilling in the Central and Northern Areas to establish further mineral resources.

The Asian Growth Properties Limited has made an announcement about the acquisition of property portfolio in Hong Kong and China. This well-known property development and investment company incorporated in BVI and based in Hong Kong has agreed to acquire a portfolio of six properties in Hong Kong and China from its major shareholder SEA Holdings Limited, for the price of HK$4,430 million. It is proposed that the AGP will acquire the Target Group which is currently holding these properties.

The AGP is the holding company of a commercial, retail and residential property investment and development Group, headquartered in Hong Kong. Currently AGP has a property portfolio consisting of three development properties and one investment property, all of them located in Hong Kong. The AGP’s total asset value and net asset value were, at 30 June 2006, HK$2,221 million and HK$1,575 million respectively.

The SEA Group is a public company listed in Hong Kong, which specializes in developing and investing in high quality office, retail, residential and resort properties in Asia Pacific countries including Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia. SEA is holding approximately 85.42% shares and is the major shareholder of AGP. The portfolio of properties of SEA in the Target Group makes the majority of SEA’s real property investment and development assets in Hong Kong and China.

Don Fletcher, Chief Executive Officer of AGP, in his comments on the proposed transaction noted that the Board of AGP sees this transaction as an exciting expansion of AGP’s activities in the property market of China and Hong Kong. It is an opportunity to increase the size of company’s property portfolio for an attractive price. Also, the Directors of the company consider that the acquisition is consistent with the Company’s stated strategy of property investment and development in the Asia Pacific Region, with the main focus on Hong Kong and China.

On completion, the AGP Group will have six development properties and four investment properties, which should enhance the Company’s position in the investment market and enable it to seek a broader institutional shareholder base over time.

The BVI company Asian Growth Properties Limited this month has announced its financial results for the period ended 30 June 2006. The results for immediate release were extracted from the unaudited financial statements of the company.

According to this company release, the pre-tax profit for this period of time was HK$5.0 million, which made a 4% increase over the corresponding period. The Net profit after tax for the period was HK$4.4 million, while in 2005 it was HK$3.9 million.

It is stated in the financial summary that the company has property assets of HK$1.618 billion and cash reserves of HK$598.3 million. The company’s net assets have increased over HK$4.4 million from 31 December 2005, and made the amount of HK$1.575 billion.

The company’s revenues have been derived mainly from rental, interest and investment income during the first six months of 2006. The AGP has reported on the development of the Wanchai Road and San Po Kong projects, and on the progress in the development of Sha Tin new territories in Hong Kong.

The AGP has the intention to invest mainly in the property sectors within Asia region, so currently it is looking for further investment opportunities mainly in Hong Kong and China.

The company Asian Growth Properties was incorporated on 17 February 2004 in the British Virgin Islands and is generally functioning as an investor and developer of commercial, retail and residential properties in Asia. The strategy of the AGP is based mainly on investing within those sectors of the Asian markets where AGP has competitive advantages and within markets where future growth opportunities are identified.

Building movie complexes by a joint venture involving a British Virgin Islands-registered company has been approved by the Vietnamese government.

MegaStar Media JV Vietnam (JVC) got not only the approval for the USD 20 million project, but also permission to open representative offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong and Dong Nai province. New cinemas will be built in TD Plaza in Hai Phong city, Hung Vuong Plaza and Saigon Plaza in Ho Chi Minh City and Saigon Co-op Bien Hoa supermarket in Dong Nai Province.

MegaStar’s shareholders which have invested over USD 5 million in the cinema company are Vietnam-registered Phuong Nam Corporation and BVI-registered Envoy Media Partners Ltd.

MegaStar Media JV Vietnam is the 2nd joint venture opening cinemas and importing movies to Vietnam. It is also the sole distributor for 2 large Hollywood movie production companies – United International Pictures and Buena Vista International showing all films in their original language with Vietnamese subtitles. Its 1st 8-screen cineplex opened in April 2006 on the 6th floor in Hanoi’s Vincom City Towers. MegaStar plans to open 10 multiplexes and entertainment centres with up to 100 screens in other Vietnamese locations.

A British Virgin Islands-based company Atlas Venture is acquiring the remaining shares of the Majestic Hotel which are still owned by minority shareholders.

Currently, the Atlas Venture company is already the owner of 96.17% of the Majestic Hotel, but it does not have the entire set of Majestic Hotel shares. Atlas Venture has informed minor shareholders about the intention to buy up all the remaining shares of this 4-star hotel.

The price for the acquisition of the remaining shares is the same as stated in the takeover bid for the purchase of the majority stake, which is CSD 26,220 per share.

Majestic Hotel surrounded with various historical and cultural monuments, art galleries and museums is located in the business centre of Belgrade (Serbia, Central Europe), 10 kilometers away from the airport. It was built in 1936, and, besides 6 suites, 26 double rooms and 46 single rooms, it contains a restaurant with national and international cuisine, a café with discreet piano music, an aperitif bar, a conference hall, a pastry shop, a hairdresser, shops, a garden, a garage and rent-a-car.

Brazauro Resources Corporation has announced that it has agreed to acquire all of BrazMin’s interests in the Tocantinzinho gold project area in Brazil. In exchange, BrazMin will receive 13,150,000 treasury shares of Brazauro, that means approximately 19.9% of the issued shares of the company. The acquisition is aimed at consolidating BrazMin’s mineral interests with Brazauro’s, and extending company’ s mineral land holdings of Brazauro in the area. Currently, BrazMin does not own any shares of Brazauro, either directly or indirectly.

BrazMin Corp. is a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and mainly engaged in the acquisition and development of gold exploration field. It has recently published the report about the results for the 2nd quarter and new achievements on the São Jorge Project, which is currently one of company’s most important projects. The agreement between BrazMin and Brazauro, as commented by Tony Ransom, president of BrazMin, allows the BVI company to concentrate its efforts on its own substantial portfolio of projects in Brazil. With BrazMin as a significant shareholder, Brazauro will benefit from the expertise and influence which will contribute to the enhancement of the project.

Brazauro Resources Corporation is a publicly listed company with three gold projects in the Tapajos region of Brazil. In 2004 the Company made a major gold discovery at Tocantinzinho property. The company also continues to explore for other promising properties in the highly prospective Tapajos region.

East Coast Energy Corporation this week has announced its plans to raise approximately CAD 21.5 million before expenses by means of a rights issue. There are the following plans that

• each holder of Class B Shares will receive one right for each Class B Share held and that seven rights will entitle the holder to subscribe for one Class B Share at a price of CAD 6.43;
• each holder of Class A Shares will receive one right for each Class A Share held and that seven rights will entitle the holder to subscribe for one Class B Share at a price of CAD 6.43.

The subscription price of CAD 6.43 represents a 15% discount to the closing price of the Class B Shares on 8 September, 2006. Under the terms of the rights issue, the maximum amount of Class B Shares will be approximately 3,345,540. The received funds will be primarily used to drill a development and exploration on the Company’s licence acreage in Tanzania, during the first half of 2007 to meet the rapidly increasing demand for gas in the country. Also these funds will strengthen the Company’s ability to make use of additional exploration and development opportunities.

East Coast Energy Corporation Limited is a publicly listed company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. Company’s headquarters is located in Tortola, BVI, but main operations offices are in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It focuses on the exploration and production of Tanzanian natural gas and the sale of “Additional Gas” to markets in East Africa.

Lockheed Martin Corp., the world’s largest defense company, announced on Thursday, 7 September 2006 about its plans to sell its stake in two satellite-launching joint ventures – Lockheed Khrunichev Energia International Inc. (LKEI) and International Launch Services Inc. (ILS). These two ventures were set up with Russian partners in the beginning of the 90s, to make and market Lockheed-built Atlas and Russian-made Proton and Angara rockets.

Launch services were marketed to customers worldwide through International Launch Services. In 2005, ILS was awarded ten contracts for launch services using Atlas or Proton launch vehicles. Starting the process of selling the LKEI and ILS stakes meets the Lockheed’s last five-year srategy of reducing its commercial space business.

The ventures are being sold to closely held Space Transport Inc., a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and owned by Mario Lemme, which is a long-time consultant for Lockheed. The terms of the bargain were not disclosed. It is known that Lockheed holds 51% in LKEI; in 1995, Lockheed and LKEI set up ILS, in which both partners have equal 50% stakes. The BVI company, which will receive these substantial stakes, denies the information that it would sell them. Susan Thurman, a spokeswoman for company’s owner, announced in Friday’s statement that Space Transport is not going to be temporary owner of ILS and as an investor it has further-going goals to continue to make available to commercial clients the satellite launch systems.

Multimillion dollar lawsuits against a US expatriate have been filed by two Saudis.   Investments poured into Lane Pendleton’s company, which then went bust. So, Prince Fahad Abdullah Mohammed al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s assistant minister of defence and aviation, and Sheikh Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, one of the richest people in the world, are suing the US expatriate.

Prince Fahad is the owner of a Swiss-based investment company Alliance.

As to a billionaire Sheikh al-Amoudi, Freeford – a company in the British Virgin Islands – is his investment vehicle. In accordance with Forbes magazines’ data, his net is worth abound 6.9 billion USD. Sheikh al-Amoudi was born in Ethiopia and is a Saudi citizen now. He made his fortune in real estate and construction before betting on Moroccan and Swedish oil refineries. Svenska Petroleum is his company that conducts oil exploration from the Nordic shelf to the Ivory Coast. Also, Sheikh al-Amoudi is the largest private investor in Ethiopia (more than 1 billion USD invested), employing more than 15 000 people there.

Both Saudis consider that Pendleton fraudulently misrepresented Orient’s financial state and prospect to encourage them to invest in it. Alliance put in 8.65 million USD. As to Freeford, between November 2000 and September 2003, it turned over 4.75 million USD.

While two wealthy Saudis want to get their investments back, Pendleton insists that his claims were reasonable. Pendleton says that  he had no reason to doubt the considerations of Orient’s management. Also, he said that Orient failed because of Freeford’s not keeping its promise to inject another 2.25 million USD.

Guiness Peat Group plc, an investment holding company having strategic interests in a number of businesses in Asia, Australia and Europe, has posted the unaudited consolidated results of Coats Group Limited for the first half of the year ended 30 June 2006.

The Coats Group, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, is actually the biggest investment of GPG.  It is the company making global operations in 67 countries, with over 25,000 employees engaged in manufacturing and distribution of threads and handknitting crafts. Guiness Peat Group bought the BVI company in 2004 for 226,1 million Euro. Coats Group is valued on its balance sheet at 246 million Euro, and is the most valuable stake of GPG’s assets estimated at 1 billion Euro.

The company results were released for information only and showed reduced profit, which followed falling sales of handknitted clothing in the U.S., as well as lower investment income. Because of these reasons, Coats Group was able to contribute to GPG just 13 million Euro, instead of 14,4 million Euro in the previous period. At the same time, the amounts of investment reorganisation have increased especially in North America.

From the statement of Coat’s chairman Gary Weiss it is clear that in the first half of the year the Coats Group made underlying progress despite more difficult trading conditions, which resulted in the decrease of BVI company’s operating profit at 10% to $US 61 million. The company’s achievements include improved performance from industrial thread offset by lower crafts sales, 17% sales growth in Asia and debt reduction by $78 million compared to previous half year. The rates in the other regions are 7% in UK and Europe, 1% in South America and 3% in North America. Due to cost savings in North America and strong growth in Asia, there was also a significant improvement in the profitability of industrial thread. The Group worldwide sales of industrial thread grew by 3%.

The improvement in industrial profitability of the Coats Group during the first half was encouraging and demonstrates that investments in reorganisation are starting to pay off. The market where the company is operating is extremely competitive, but global demand is reasonably stable, and second half results should continue to benefit from recent new plant and reorganisation investments.