BVI Company News

On April 28, Nomihold Securities Inc., registered in the British Virgin Islands, filed a suit at the London arbitration court against Russia’s MTS. By the information provided by the Russian mobile operator, Nomihold Securities accuses MTS of failing to exercise a $170 million stock repurchase option. The court proceeding date to examine the case will be known in summer of this year.

In 2005, the BVI company sold 51% of the shares of Tarino Limited, which is the indirect owner of the Kyrgyz GSM operator Bitel, to MTS for $150 million. The deal was concluded by MTS through its Luxembourg-registered subsidiary, Mobile TeleSystems Finance S.A. Soon the Russian investment company, Reservspetsmet, said it had struck a deal to purchase Bitel and since that time MTS has had no operational control of the Kyrgyz operator.

In its suit against MTS, BVI-registered Nomihold Securities Inc. demands from MTS Finance S.A. to exercise the $170 million option for the repurchase of 49% of the shares of Tarino Limited, and compensate for the plaintiff’s losses and expenses.

In its turn, MTS considers that it must not exercise this option because it does not possess the shares acquired in 2005. The Russian company also intended to ask for the review of the option terms because it was set at the time the option deal was struck that Tarino Ltd. had operational control of Bitel, which is the Kyrgyz’s sole company operating on the GSM. However, in its official statement MTS said that it will pay the required amount, if the court makes such a judgement.

Compress Technologies, Inc. (CTLG), a Nevada based technology company, has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Balmoral Capital Holdings Inc, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands and known as BCHI, to assist in selling licenses in UK and Central Europe.

Balmoral Capital Holding Companies is a company with significant transaction and industry expertise, offering full range of investment banking services including overseas IPO’s, PIPEs, M&A Advisory and Debt Capital markets in Europe and Asia. BCHI uses their main office in British Virgin Islands to raise all capital. Company’s holding ICOM was founded in 1990 and provides technology based solutions to businesses throughout the UK. Its main focus is supplying products and services that offer discounted prices without compromising quality of service that customers are expecting in the market.

The BVI-domiciled BCHI is the owner of the Icom group, which brings profits to the company already for 5 years. BCHI will authorize its holding in ICOM telecom to organize a subsidiary to buy and sell Joint Venture licenses with CTLG for consideration of cash and stock. BCHI will also try to distribute Compression licenses throughout Europe under a shared revenues arrangement, and organize a Kent UK company to co-venture licenses. The closing of the deal is to coincide with CTLG opening a European branch.

CTLG continues negotiations with several potential major companies interested in CTLG’s application technology for International and Domestic deployment.

Last week “The Fortress Global Value Fund”, established and managed by Fortress Fund Managers Limited, was launched in the British Virgin Islands at an initial offering of US$1. Fortress Global is structured as a fund of funds and administered by ATU Fund Administrators (BVI) Ltd.

Fortress Fund had always expected a lot for this new fund. After it was launched last year in November, and after just some months of operation since the fund’s initial offering closed on September 15, 2006, it has provided a return of 6.86%.

After the BVI launch, Fortress Investment Manager Roger Cave told about his great expectations regarding the fund’s performance, “We are highly confident that our years of experience in the investments field will aid our new venture into the international markets and assist investors, institutional and individual alike, realise strong growth in their quest for greater global diversification within their portfolios”.

The BVI-launched fund has already accumulated total assets of US$7 million, and its net asset value is now US$1.0686 per share.