Previously Crown Corp, CCO. Institutional interest now and the Co has changed it's name for a fresh beginning. Still very speculative, but what isn't? but just a case of investing the huge amount of Cash sitting in a Brazilian bank a/c. There's no real difference here to an emerging markets investment fund apart from the obvious and very attractive discount to NAV of approx 75% !!!!!

Yes, quite so. Not going to make much of a dent though is it. BUT you are right....hardly reflects the kind of leadership one would hope for with 350m in the bank.... perhaps I should buy MOI.....

Booboo

in the 10 mins after this was announced today MOIs price went up 20% then fell back at the close - i think the MMs were one step ahead of anyone thinking this today!!!

Hi All,

'tis a strange deal, but I guess they want the cash shell to float off another imminent aquisition, that would mean 'value' for shareholders, whether 'bailing out' or not.

Cheers,
PM

Since MAM has failed to post this:

Interim Results

RNS Number:0002S
Langbar International Limited
30 September 2005


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 30 September 2005

Langbar International Limited
(formerly Crown Corporation Limited)

Interim Results for the period ended 30th June 2005

Langbar International ("Langbar" or "the Company"), the UK listed investment
company, announces its interim results for the period ended 30th June 2005.

Highlights for the period:

*Pre-tax profit #14.77 million (Period to 30th Dec 2004 #166.81 million)

*Asset value, at period end, #356.85 million equivalent to 205p per share

*New Chief Executive appointed, new non-executive Director appointed

*Langbar Capital, a corporate finance advisory and investment company,
acquired, the consideration wholly satisfied by the issue of 2 million
common shares

*Capital reorganisation

*Arden Partners appointed Nominated Adviser and Broker

Post Balance Sheet events:

*Total of #4.1 million raised via Placings

*$294 million transferred to ABN Amro, Holland from Banco do Brazil,
Brazil

*Acquisition of Real Affinity plc, an integrated marketing services
company for a consideration of #2.6 million, wholly satisfied by the issue
of common shares

*Balance of cash held in Brazil to be transferred to EPIC, the property
subsidiary

Stuart Pearson, Chief Executive and Acting Chairman, commented:

"The performance of the share price has improved dramatically since we last
reported in June. However it is still substantially below the net asset value of
the business.

"Since my appointment we have been focused on realising the asset value by
releasing the funds from Brazil and on keeping shareholders up to date with
events. We recently announced that $294 million had been transferred to ABN
Amro, Holland.

"The strategy for the future has not been changed and it remains to produce
consistent and growing earnings for our shareholders by actively managing the
investments. These will include early stage, pre-IPO and small company
investments, of which Real Affinity represents an excellent example, as well as
larger ones where appropriate.

"The Company is carrying out due diligence on a major property investment and is
also looking at a number of smaller interesting opportunities where profit and
shareholder value can be significantly enhanced. Investments made are likely to
have a UK and European focus in the short term."

Folks, I know I'm not the most intelligent pebble on the beach BUT why are people still buying RAF at more than the offer price, when LGB can be bought directly so cheap at the moment???

Hi iturama.
Thanks for posting the results. MAM should slap themselves hard around the head for not posting the results. I`m a novice at this game but find it hard to believe there are so many sheep out their selling because a company has made a profit. I see so many other reports come out and it`s "wow...lets buy these because there loss this year is not as bad as last year !!!" Here we have an undervalued stock that people are running from because of a healthy profit and assets that are becomming much more attainable and useable. Most of the real progress that has happened has been since June so why the bus out of Langbar city ?! Please enlighten me.
Obe2

....er just realised!....told you I wasn't the brightest....does that mean that the MM's will manipulate the share price around 78 until the deal is done?

I think some were expecting news of the investment of the funds, but this is not going to happen overnight. We know the money is there and is now "safe" so the risk has been taken out of this investment. I still predict a sp of over 1.50 within the next few mths, if not sooner. Some holders are sitting on good profits especially those from the placing and its never wrong to take a profit especially if its so quick and this has kept the price down but As I have said in the past, true value will be seen soon Its a non-brainer!!

Yesterday I was close to being carried along by the story and taking a modest position for long enough for the value to out.

What stopped me was the number and size of the trades going through around the bid price. As any experienced trader will observe, you can't tell what is going on from Buys and Sells because there is a party on either side of the transactions, BUT

my reading of it was that there is a serious overhang being unloaded and until that has cleared there is little chance of the price rising.

The cash may be real but if there are some distressed shareholders unloading into strength they'll have to be cleared before there is any point in committing to this one.

Must be clearing then, price has recovered 6p already from this am

and another penny, thats 10% you would have gained. This co's sp is very volatile and I don't think it's worth trying to read anything into the movements, whats clear is that they have net assets worth 3x the sp = very undervalued. Someone will notice before long and pounce.

Calm down rob. My screen says 5% down on the day. Please don't post here without trying to forward the debate. There's a well known BB across the road for making noise.

edit: Now 7% and with a spread widened to 7% this is not the time to get in.

IMHO there was absolutely nothing new in the results and there is still uncertainty as to the extraction and use of the funds from Brazil.

1 thing thats nagging me, if they have all this cash and access to at least some of it, why did they raise 4m recently for working capital and then why in buying RAF are they buying it with shares not cash - its only 2.6m (less than 1% of what they claim to have). At least they are only paying 0.39p per share (some RAF buyers yesterday got shafted)

Can anyone shed any light

Fundy, I've got some of these as a punt. Like you I am totally baffled why they need to raise funds when they've got all this cash. Only answer I can come up with is that the money hadn't been released from Brazil in time. Bit lame I know, but no idea what is going on. Must be the strangest company on the LSE!

pth

Bribes ;)

Presumably they cannot get their hands on the cash in Holland at ABM Amro yet.

Fundamentalist.
The placing was made in August when the company was still Crown Corporation, and before the money had been released from Banco do Brasil.
I don't think there is anything fishy about the Brazil deal. The fact is that a lot of companies have invested there because of the very high interest rates on cash deposits while the local currrency, the Real, has appreciated over 50% against the US$ over the last 2 years.
As for the shares v cash acquisition for RAF, I doubt that the RAF external directors would have recommended the cash offer. It is at the lower end of the average trading price of the stock for this year and cash would have been final. An all share deal offers the RAF shareholders the opportunity to share in the LGB upside since the nominal value of the shares is only a third of the NAV value.
Think about it, which would you have preferred, as a RAF shareholder?

Langbar set for huge property deal
But Real Affinity has to be dealt with first
Eric Barkas
City Editor
LANGBAR INTERNATIONAL, the investment company, expects to seal a $200m property acquisition by the end of November.
The deal should have been the showpiece when Langbar reported interim results yesterday. In the event, the show was stolen by the company's first corporate acquisition the more modest 2.6m in shares agreed for Real Affinity, the Bradford-based marketing company.
The Real Affinity deal was flagged up in Friday's Business Post. Stuart Pearson, who runs Langbar out of Leeds, has bigger fish to fry.
The property deal is likely to be in Portugal or Spain and will involve a 150-acre site including commercial and residential property, hotels and a golf course. There's a limit to what Mr Pearson can say, given that regulators have told him to get Real Affinity sorted before he can move on to the next announcement.
If you look at Langbar you need a degree in corporate finance, such is the complexity of the history.
It all began with Crown, an investment company incorporated in Bermuda for tax reasons. Crown had a lot of big plans but never did a big deal. Instead, it spent money chasing deals that never came off.
But it did have some cash. Mr Pearson, a former Baker Tilley accountant in Leeds, says he was invited on board, injected some of his own corporate boutique interests, and ended up as chief executive. He changed the name to Langbar.
The company's strategy is to invest in small businesses, help them to grow then spin them off. There are several current investments, of which Real Affinity is potentially the biggest.
Langbar is paying for the Bradford company in shares in a deal worth some 2.6m. Mr Pearson says Real Affinity management had lined up several potential acquisitions but was previously prevented from following through by the small size and even smaller share price of the company.
He says with Langbar's financial muscle he expects to make an acquisition within the next month which will double Real Affinity's size. A second purchase is pending before Christmas. Real Affinity floated on the Aim market in 2001, specialising in direct and web-based marketing.
Failure to integrate acquisitions and lack of financial controls sent it into the red. Full year results out yesterday showed the deficit to be 2m before tax but after exceptional costs of around 1m.
The headcount has been halved to 60. The head office is now a more modest building. Yet the company has a raft of impressive clients almost all of them FTSE 100 or big international players like Tesco and VW/Audi.
Under Langbar, Real Affinity will de-list. Mr Pearson says he expects management to grow the business quickly. Then Langbar will spin it off back to the public domain.
"What we've really given it is the currency to go out and build this business."
So what of Langbar? It keeps its Bermuda registration as a legacy of Crown but the operations end is in Yorkshire. It has some 360m of cash, mainly inherited from Crown. Included in that is around 160m recently repatriated from Brazil. Crown raised share money there and had PFI contracts. There's another 190m still to be repatriated.
Hence the property deals. Brazil has long-standing relations with Portugal and, because of its proximity and influence, Spain. If Mr Pearson can't get the physical cash out, he'll get it by asset transfer to property. His plan is that Langbar will end up with a marketing company and a property company to spin off. Add to that a third company he won't talk about but on which he is is prepared to spend $250m of Brazil money.
In the end, the ambition is modest. Langbar shareholders will have shares in three companies and Langbar itself will revert to being Mr Pearson's little boutique.
Langbar's half year figures yesterday showed taxable profits of 18.2m. The comparative period showed 146.5m but was influenced by one-off contracts in South America bought and sold by Crown.
eric.barkas@ypn.co.uk
01 October 2005

http://www.atlanticogolfehotel.com/

Is this the daftest share? Worth 4 times the sp in cash!!!! when are people going to wake up to this fact.