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% !!!!!

Minus the administrator's fees etc.

Believe me shareholders will get absolutely nothing back.

The money is well gone by now if it ever exsisted in the first place that is.

oh yes when I said a couple of million pounds I don't think any of it will ever be paid to shareholders.

Great call Langdon .... after the event.

Like the horses you tell me I should have backed.

I keep asking you but you fail to answer who the effing hell is "langdon" ?

Judging by the time of your post did you get kicked out of the Cardiff gay bar early or something ?

An immigrant from England.

A Crown farce: how Langbar mislaid 365m
Who made the AIM firms worldwide schemes and huge deposits disappear into thin air? By Paul Durman and Louise Armitstead

ON a stormy night in December 2003, a colourful group of international businessmen gathered at Villa Castagnola, a grand hotel on the shore of Lake Lugano in Switzerland.

The former home of a Russian nobleman, it made a sumptuous setting for two days of talks. The main item on the agenda: how to spend the 150m that had made Crown Corporation the largest cash shell on Londons Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

Among those present were Crowns chairman Mariusz Rybak, a Canadian technology executive, and Jean-Pierre Regli, a Swiss-Italian banker and the companys co-founder.

A full line-up of advisers included Barry Townsley of stockbroker Insinger Townsley, a Labour donor who had supported Frank Dobsons bid to become mayor of London. The bad weather meant he and Simon Fox, also from Insinger, had to hire a private jet to make the journey from France.

The biggest presence, physically and financially, was Abraham Avi Arad, a hefty 6ft 3in mathematical genius, terrorism expert and former adviser to the Israeli government. Avi Arad was the man leading the discussions, said one of those present. He was the man who had found (Crowns) backing.

Vic Alboini of Northern Securities, a Canadian broker, outlined the Canadian firms that were available for Crown to buy: water, technology and security companies.

To some observers, there was no logic to the list. I got the impression Crown did not know what it wanted to do, said one.

Crown never did figure out what it wanted to do. Perhaps that is part of the reason why the firm, now known as Langbar International, is the subject of a 365m fraud investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

By the time of the Lugano meeting, Crown had already won $633m (366m) of contracts in Argentina to carry out waste-management and water-treatment work with businesses it had yet to buy. After its brief dalliance with Canada, it was soon distracted by opportunities in the oil and gas industry, setting up Crown Oil.

Then late last year there was the very exciting $294m demerger of Crown Pharmaceutical, which was going to buy a Russian drugs company, and Crown Development, an eastern European property company. More recently, it has been looking at buying properties in Spain and Portugal.

Most of these schemes seem to have evaporated into thin air just like the cash in the companys bank accounts. About the only deal Crown managed to pull off was the 700,000 purchase of Langbar Capital, a tiny year-old corporate-finance boutique run by Stuart Pearson, a northern accountant who took over as Crowns chief executive in June. Pearson promptly changed the companys name to Langbar International.

Confused? To appreciate the full extent of the companys incoherence, look at these facts. Crown/Langbar is a Bermuda-registered company, founded by a Polish-Canadian, backed by Israeli money, which traded in Argentina, banked its money in Brazil, had its accounts audited in Spain ... and, which thanks to British financial advisers, listed its shares on the London stock market.

Yet even this does not capture the most unusual aspect that came nine days ago when, after months spent trying to verify the existence of its cash deposits, Pearson issued the following statement.

Kroll (the corporate investigations firm) has reported to the board that it appears likely that the company has been subject to a serious fraud. Kroll has not been able to establish the existence, nor verify the companys entitlement to, any of the relevant assets at any time in the companys history.

Pearson has asked the police and the Financial Services Authority to investigate. The huge fraud is the biggest scandal to hit AIM.

Pearsons shocking announcement flatly contradicted three earlier assurances he had given his investors. When he became chief executive, he simultaneously issued audited results that said 280m (189m) had been paid into the companys account at the Banco do Brasil.

This money was from selling the Argentine waste and water contracts to Lambert a company controlled by Arad, and Langbars biggest shareholder.

Twice more before the end of September, and encouraged by a meeting with Banco do Brasil in S Paulo, Pearson told his shareholders that the company had hundreds of millions of pounds in cash deposits.

Investors piled into Langbars shares. At about 50p, their price was only a quarter of the 205p per share value of the companys cash deposits. It looked too good an opportunity to be true.

Sadly, it was. Within two weeks of the interim results, Langbar suspended trading in its shares, assailed by fresh doubts about the cash in its bank accounts.

The pivotal person in the Crown/Langbar story is Arad. Through Lambert, he put up the 150m contributed, he said, by 2,000 Jewish pensioners in Israel, Argentina and Germany that enabled Crown to float in London in October 2003. That initially gave Lambert a 59% stake in Crown.

According to Regli, Arads Argentine contacts set up the $633m waste-management and water-treatment deals to serve over 14,000 dwellings, 9 industrial parks, 2 commercial centres, 3 complexes of municipal buildings and 2 hospitals in Buenos Aires.

Barely six months after Crown won this deal, Lambert bought these and other Argentine contracts with a $350m promissory note.

Baker Tilly, the accountant, was initially engaged as Crowns auditor but grew concerned at the multiple roles that Arad was performing.

Regli said Baker Tilly refused to sign off the audit of Crowns accounts. They were concerned about the involvement of the major shareholder in the politics of the company because (Arad and Lambert) were advisers, they brought us the Argentinian contracts, they were bringing us to Russia. (Baker Tilly) did not feel comfortable with this relationship.

Given Baker Tillys concerns, Crowns response to the firms resignation was remarkable. It turned to a small Spanish auditor called Gironella Velasco a firm introduced by Arad, who has a home in Barcelona.

Pearson became involved after Philip Wood, a business partner, met Arad, who said Crown wanted help with a gold-mining venture in Argentina.

It was clear to me and Philip that Rybak didnt have a clue what he was doing, said Pearson. He had a management contract that pays him 9% of net assets a year. No wonder the share price was so low when the company was being run as Rybaks own little fiefdom.

At a meeting in Monaco, Pearson told Rybak his contract was a killer to investors.

Pearson agreed to join the board and sort out the corporate governance, but only after receiving assurances about the companys finances, in particular the $350m promissory note. The audited 2004 accounts published in June gave him the comfort he needed. Rybak left with a deal that gave him a 44% stake.

At the beginning of September, Pearson received news of a breakthrough: five or six certificates of deposit, worth a total of $294m, were to be placed in an account at ABN Amro in the Netherlands. Pearson rushed out this apparently good news to investors. In retrospect, he said, this was a fatal mistake.

Three weeks later, he learnt that the ABN Amro documents were fake. ABN couldnt find the cash. They said they never print certificates like the ones we had, they only have them in electronic form. Anyway, I panicked how could such a big deposit be lost? So we immediately suspended the shares and brought in Kroll.

Most of the investors realise they have lost their money. Institutional investors knew the risks thats why 200p a share in cash was until recently being sold for 50p.

Arad came to London last week to speak to Kroll. He told Pearson he had a solution an offer to put more assets into Langbar at no cost. But Pearson couldnt face it. I cant deal with him any more, he said.

I dont know whats happened. Maybe the company was floated on fresh air and then was the victim of an elaborate sting, part of which included looking for a British guy with Mug on his forehead to run it.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-1902797,00.html

I thought this plot had already ben used on Saphire and Steel?

Prufrock: Suckered at the Langbar bank

EDITED BY LOUISE ARMITSTEAD



THE police are trying to get to the bottom of the fraud at Langbar, the AIM-quoted cash shell that, as Prufrock predicted two months ago, seems never to have had any cash.
Heres a good place to start. Last July, newly appointed chief executive Stuart Pearson travelled to S Paulo, Brazil, to confirm the existence of the 150m cash deposits. He returned triumphant: he had met Banco do Brasil, seen the assets and got the statements.



Investors piled in: the cash was much more than the companys market value. If Pearson retrieved it, bingo, it would mean easy profits.

So what went wrong? I called Pearson to go through the basics. Was it definitely Banco do Brasil? We met in the banks main branch, he said.

Phew. A real banker, right? We were met in the main hall by a lawyer. He said the banker we expected couldnt make it, but brought his (business) card. And it was real.

Ah ha. Youre a customer worth millions, so you were taken to the smartest office? We had a meeting in an anteroom off the main hall. We went through security checks so we could sign for the account.

Then your banker appeared? The next day the banker was still ill or something. We met the lawyer again, this time in his office but it had Banco do Brasil logos on the windows.

The lawyer said we would deal with him mostly, anyway, since our aim was to try to get the assets out . . . I suppose alarm bells should have rung.

I should say.

lol!

unreal. due diligence indeed. deserves to be strung up for incompetence.

Some LGB fools on advfn think they will get their money back. Amazing.

Unless you have not invested in this company,there are or will be plenty of hopefuls who must be praying for some thing back,as even myself who has been a victim as well,and hoping for the best outcome,which i know is very difficult but you never know,still hoping.

Pearson is surely the culprit here. He never did meet anyone from the BANCO DE BRASIL in SAO PAULO ...and BANCO DE BRASIL never did give Pearson any evidence of the 150m cash deposit. How could Pearson be such a mug......and i mean that nicely as the best of businessmen could have stood in Pearson's shoes on that occasion.
PEARSON did visit BANCO DE BRASIL and he did so at the SAO PAULO premises of that bank.... so what went wrong?
The person Pearson met at those premises conned him. Pearson and the other person met in the banking hall (!!!!!) of the bank and went into a side room(!!!!). The person was not an official of the bank....he was a conman !!
It was agreed that there be a further meeting the next day and that be at an office elsewhere in the city. At the office there were logos of the BANCO DE BRASIL on the windows .....i wonder how much it cost to insert those logos??
The evidence at both meetings was sufficient to convince PEARSON that the 150m. was there in the bank in cash.
Two problems: the so called evidence was fraudulent and it was a conman who produced it ----and, of course there was no 150m. in the bank

the whole episode brings to the fore two aspects which i learnt over past years:
(a) tell someone what they want to hear and they are highly likely to believe you
(b)if you are investigating anything then believe nothing at all...and prove each and every step backwards to your own independent high standards of proof

i recall a property developer who was asked by a bank for a certain particular report which, in normal course, was impossible to achieve. This developer simply arranged for the formation of a limited company elsewhere with a suitable title....that company duly produced its report . and the very substantail loan money was advanced .

on occasions over the years i have been conned.....and really i have admiration for the culprit. it is breathtaking (or moneytaking) the way the conman operates. He needs to be good at his ploy as the penalty for failure is so great

you will find it easier to con a truly honest man......which is why i was caught.
i anticipate that PEARSON was easily caught because he was so very honest ..plus he was looking for evidence of the deposit and not evidence of fraud. If he was looking for evidence of fraud then he must be surely damned if the story i have put forward is indeed correct which i have reason to believe is so

where are Paulmasterson1 and Robstuff ??????

where is PaulMasterton1 and Robstuff

mpw777, PM1 has been banned from using this site, look on the Stanelco board if you can be bothered, you'll have to go back several thousand posts though.

FRAMPTON thank you for your posting no. 364

i realise that stirring can come with various recipies there can be one ( or two ) which spoil the pot

i was very critical of HIGHBURY ....AND LOOK WHAT HAS NOW HAPPENED

i am even more critical of MILLFIELD ......it will be a real shocker if life offices such as Friends Provident and Norwich Union plus , say, STANDARD LIFE drag MILLFIELD out of the mire. those offices will , no doubt, use the policyholders' with profits fund which is a disgrace. all to protect their new business flow.

if my contention is not correct then valid information from valid sources will be welcome

mpw777, I forgot to add, PM1 now appears to be posting on the Stanelco board as "Red Erik", I don't suppose he'll ever reappear on this board though!
I agree with you about Highbury.

This looks more ridiculous by the day.

Pearson may not be guilty of anything other than criminal neglect of ensuring shareholders investments.

Prufrock: Tripped up by Langbars samba (EDITED BY LOUISE ARMISTEAD)

Prufrock: Tripped up by Langbars samba
EDITED BY LOUISE ARMISTEAD



PRUFROCK was delighted to learn last week that it is gaining readers in Brazil distinguished ones at that. Augusto Brauna, international director at Banco do Brasil, enjoyed my story about a meeting in S Paulo between a lawyer supposedly acting for the bank and Stuart Pearson, the hapless accountant who has taken over as chief executive of Langbar International. Langbar, nCrown Corporation, claimed to be the biggest cash shell on AIM until Pearson belatedly discovered it had no cash. Langbar is now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Brauna was particularly tickled by the suggestion that Latin Americas biggest bank would resort to meeting important clients in a law firm with the banks logo plastered all over its windows to lend credibility, you understand.



Its absolutely ridiculous, he said. Banco do Brasil has never dealt with Mr Pearson or anyone relating to Langbar. That includes Marius Rybak, Pearsons predecessor, finance boss Jean-Pierre Regli, and Avi Arad, the firms principal backer. Regli and Arad, with Keith Smith at adviser Nabarro Wells, also had a meeting with Banco do Brasil or thought they did.

There has never been any deposit in Banco do Brasil coming from Crown or Langbar or any of these gentlemen, said Brauna. Weve never had any contact with them.

Brauna took one look at Crowns accounts, which show a certificate of deposit (CD) for $275m, and decided it was fraudulent in not much more than 30 seconds. The bank doesnt issue CDs abroad. The huge amount and the stated interest rate illustrated its clearly a fraud. It doesnt make any sense at all.

If it was so obvious, why didnt Nabarro Wells, or the firms other advisers, spot the warning signs

see my posting no. 361 and the posting no. 367 .....is PEARSON a complete idiot. one aspect is certain PEARSON could not have acted on a more idiotic basis.