MAR is capitalising on the governments new schemes to build affordable housing, not a large player with a market cap of around £35m, but making a profit.dyor.

Mar City Homes Collects Housebuilding Awards
Mar City (AIM: MAR.L) is delighted to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Mar City Homes Limited has recently won a series of industry awards as follows:

The Society of British & International Design Awards
Mar City Homes' prestigious development in the Midlands, 'The Malt House', has been awarded the 'Best Residential Retrofit' project at The Society of British & International Design Awards. In this category entrants are judged on the success of a renovation and upgrading of an existing building. The shortlisted finalists in the 15 categories were drawn from over 30 countries across five continents.

West Midlands Property Awards
Mar City Homes development, 'The Malt House' also won the Regeneration Project of the Year at the recent West Midlands Property Awards hosted by Insider Media. The team not only found a new residential use for this former industrial building, but celebrated its manufacturing heritage in its design and detail. The development was highlighted as a great example in how to convert, conserve and create.

WhatHouse? Awards
The WhatHouse? Silver Award for Best Medium Housebuilder was presented to Mar City Homes for its industry leading modular technology producing sustainable and affordable homes in London and the Midlands, where in the last twelve months, Mar City Homes has commenced the introduction of its modular building methods across a number of new homes developments for open market sale and mixed use affordable developments.

Mar City Homes has also won the WhatHouse? Silver Award for Best Brownfield Development, for its Greenpoint development in Colindale, London, NW9. The £26m mixed-use scheme by Mar City Homes, using its modular construction methods achieving factory-controlled product quality and speed of construction allied with leading architectural design. The 102 apartment development includes affordable homes managed by Sanctuary Housing Association.

Commenting, Maggie Ryan, Operations Director of Mar City plc, said: "It is very gratifying for the entire team at Mar City to receive these awards in recognition of both the excellent standards of design we always aim to achieve as well as the modern methods of construction which we are now introducing across a number of our developments."

StockMarketWire.com
Mar City said its FY pretax profit will be in line with market views and more than three fold the previous year. It said 2014 was a transformational period with the highly successful launch of its modular technology.

CEO Tony Ryan said:
"The last year has been transformational for Mar City as we successfully launched our new modular technology. We now have a strong pipeline where we are in discussions with a number of potential joint venture partners and we are also developing plans to increase our home building capacity through the development of our own production facilities. We have a strong land bank with in the region of five years supply with planning permission.

"During 2015 we see a larger proportion of Mar City new homes built using our modular technology, and as demand increases we will match our production capabilities alongside that growth.

"We continue to see strong demand as a result of the Help to Buy initiative in each of our core markets in London/South East and the Midlands, where it is a particularly good match with the excellent quality and sustainability that Mar City new homes afford our customers.

"We look forward to achieving further growth in the current year as we continue to provide award winning new homes in London/South East and the Midlands."

Profit warning.

StockMarketWire.com
Mar City expects pre-tax profits for the year ended 31 December will be approximately £6.3m - substantially below market forecasts.

The company says the adjustment to the expected profit before tax result is due to a review of profit recognition associated with the following:

1. the holding value of completed residential properties, built by the company, in a private rental sector portfolio. These properties (a portfolio of 83 residential units) were to be retained by the company and therefore recognised and revalued as investment properties, with a total revaluation profit of £3.5m in the year to 31 December 2014.

The board has now decided that the benefit of retaining these units is not likely to be as significant as the benefit from selling the PRS portfolio for cash and has decided to market the units for sale.

As a result, the benefit to 31 December results from the revaluation as investment properties will not be received, and any profit from their sale will be recognised only on legal completion of sales in the future.

The board is confident that the majority of these units to be sold in the financial year to 31 December 2015.

2. The treatment of contractual income to be received by the company from forward sale agreements on two housing sites upon which it is currently contracted to develop. The review the board conducted has concluded that given the progress on each of these sites to date, the profit recognised on these contracts should be reduced to be in line with the build and delivery status of both sites, which had been inappropriately reflected in the profit guidance provided in the 28 January trading update.

The board expects the profit from these sites to be recognised during the financial year to 31 December 2015 and onwards. The company says the board of will be conducting a full assessment of the company's procedures regarding announcements and their verification which is currently being arranged.

The company said it announced in its interim results statement on 16 September, that the net debtor balance (excluding the unchanged GBB funding liability) owing from Mar City Developments Limited was £31.2m as at 30 June 2014, mainly comprising of balances owed in respect of the JCT contract for the development of the 103 apartment development site at Colindale, North London. The latest MCDL debt balance (following cash repayments of £10.0m expected to be received next week) is approximately £19.5m. This balance is expected to be reduced by way of set off by approximately £14.5m, being the consideration the group will pay, through the acquisition of property assets from MCDL. The consideration (and therefore the reduction in the MCDL debt) will be adjusted subject to current planning applications being applied for and liabilities attaching to the properties.

Independent valuations are currently being undertaken on the properties to be acquired to establish fair value. It has been further agreed, that any remaining MCDL debt balance (excluding the GBB funding liability), post completion of the proposed property acquisition, will be eliminated by 31 December 2015.

The proposed property acquisition is expected to comprise (a) two development sites, and (b) several Colindale assets including a number of residential units, the food retail space and the freehold interest which will all be acquired by Mar City for re-sale on the open market.

The Colindale site is expected to reach practical completion by June 2015, including the 79 units pre sold to Sanctuary Housing Association and a further 24 open market units.

Update on proposed property acquisitions
Mar City (AIM: MAR.L), the London and Midlands focused housebuilder, announces that, further to the announcement issued on 20 February 2015 work on the proposed property acquisitions is continuing and the Company expects that a circular regarding these acquisitions will be posted to shareholders in early April and in any event by no later than 20 April 2015.

Suspended this morning.

StockMarketWire.com
Mar City has today had its shares suspended pending the appointment of a new Nominated Adviser (Nomad). The Board has already commenced talks to appoint a new Nomad in due course.

The Board is well under way with the process of appointing a new Finance Director and Non-Executive roles including the replacement to Non-Executive Chairman, Hamilton Anstead, who has confirmed his resignation for personal reasons.

Hamilton was to step down from the Board at the Company's next General Meeting and the Board would like to thank him for his contribution to the Company over recent years.

The Company's operations continue to perform in line with management expectations.

Following the resignation of its Nominated Advisor in April, the Company has announced that so far it has not been able to appoint a new Nominated Advisor. As the rules of the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange require that a new Nominated Advisor is appointed within 1 month, this means that the Company’s shares have been delisted from the AIM Market on 21 May 2015.

I've just spent an hour of my Sunday morning reading the thread on the other side about this share. What a mess with the related party transactions with the owners other companies.

No idea if this company was profitable or not.

I am completely puzzled by the Ryan's raising £10m from their Mar City shares to pay a debt from their own company to Mar City. Either they were so wrapped up in everything and couldn't stand the shame of everything going tits up and rolled the dice once more hoping for some miracle around rising property prices to save them or they'd got themselves into a short term cash flow problem.

Seem to have got through too many FD's, non-execs for my liking.

Finally I can't see their £40m revolving debt facility getting renewed given the lack of board or NOMAD. Don't know if the lack of NOMAD is a technical breach of their debt agreement.

I hope anyone involved over here hasn't been too badly burnt

Double post. Removed

Corporate Update
Firstly, your Board must apologise for the extended period since the Company’s last formal communication. There have been a number of challenges and much to accomplish since the shares were officially delisted from AIM and it did not want to provide partial or conditional information in the intervening period.

Mar City PLC’s listing on AIM was suspended on 20 April 2015 and, subsequently, cancelled on 21 May 2015 and at that point the Company was intent on seeking a relisting on AIM. However, given the corporate and operational issues confronting the Group as outlined below, the Company is not yet in a position to determine when it might be able to seek any such re-listing of its Ordinary Shares.

During 2014 the Group made significant investments in development land and work in progress as part of its ambitious growth strategy. It is evident that the Group has suffered because the corporate governance regime and financial controls framework have not proven sufficiently robust to handle rapid growth on the scale and volume of the developments undertaken.

Given these events, it was a clear priority to strengthen both the Board and the overarching corporate governance and controls within the business to enable the Company and the Group to return to a more stable and focused operational platform. The instigation of this process of change resulted in the key appointment of Martyn Everett as Executive Chairman of the Company in June 2015 to lead a Group wide restructuring. He brings with him considerable experience in exercises of this nature and in this sector. The Board has since been further strengthened by the appointment of Paul Underwood as Chief Operating Officer on 21 September 2015 and Andrew Styles as Finance Director on 10 December 2015. Additionally, Robin Johnson has been appointed as Group Secretary on an interim basis, in order to support the governance controls’ process and assist the Board in stabilising and refocusing the business. Measures are also being undertaken to bolster the Group’s finance and IT functions.

Meanwhile, Tony and Maggie Ryan resigned as directors and relinquished their executive responsibilities within the Group on 10 December 2015 but remain as major shareholders. In addition, Alan Birks resigned as a non-executive director on 16 September 2015. Your Board is looking to appoint a suitably experienced non-executive director in the near future and will provide further details once available.

A number of other initiatives have been actioned or are underway, which can be summarised as follows:

Refocusing the Group’s build programme to concentrate on its existing core product offering, where demand levels remain strong, and introducing further operational efficiencies. Regrettably, as the Group refocuses and reduces the near term scale of the number of products, a sizeable number of positions have become redundant with a consequent loss of jobs;
Reviews of other cash regenerating oppotunities including through the sale of surplus sites and rental portfolio properties;
The implementation of robust short term cash flow forecasting and monitoring;
Strengthening of corporate governance and controls;
Extending the Company’s accounting reference date and commencing preparation of the audited financial statements for the eighteen months 30 June 2015; and
Formulation and adoption of a new 3 year business plan and the funding proposals to support it.

The Group’s secured lenders have been supportive of the actions and initiatives being taken and have provided further funding to the Group on a secured basis since June 2015. The Board is working with them to secure longer term funding to support the Group’s 3 year business plan.

A further key imperative for the Board has been the need to reduce the Group’s unsecured debtor exposure to Mar City Developments Limited (“MCDL“) (a private property development business ultimately owned by Tony and Maggie Ryan), which featured in market announcements earlier this year. On 20 February 2015, the Company announced an update on the repayment of the net debtor balance owed to the Group by MCDL. The announcement stated that the net debt owed by MCDL to Mar City Homes was at the time approximately £19.5 million (following cash repayments received from MCDL in February 2015 totalling £9.85 million). As part of the restructuring exercise, detailed work is underway to analyse, quantify and reconcile the precise amounts owed by MCDL to the Group (the MCDL Debt). This work, which involves reviewing transactions going back over some years, is on-going.

In the short-term, the Group has secured agreement that all remaining sales proceeds from the Colindale development will be paid directly to the Group in reduction of that receivable, which should amount in aggregate to approximately £12.0m of which approximately £3.0m has already been received. In addition, MCDL has a further liability to the Group in an amount of £8.9 million, which relates to the GBB grant funding received by MCDL from the HCA in relation to the properties acquired along with Mar City Land by the Group in December 2013. Pursuant to an agreement entered into by MCDL, these monies must be repaid by MCDL as and when the Group becomes obliged to start repaying the HCA (expected to commence in 2016 and to end in 2018) (the MCDL HCA Liability).

As a consequence, the Group continues to actively examine ways of further reducing the amount of the MCDL Debt and extinguishing the MCDL HCA Liability, recognising that there are genuine concerns as to MCDL’s ability to satisfy these obligations in full.

Yours faithfully,
Martyn Everett
Chairman

DELISTING
Further to the Cancellation of the Company’s listing on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange in May 2015, Mar City plc has announced that it has appointed Capita Asset Services to provide its Shareholders with a Matched Bargain Service (MBS). This service will provide Shareholders with a confidential off-market trading platform to trade their Shares.
Please note that as the Shares of Mar City plc are not trading on a regulated market, there may be a significant delay before any transactions in these Shares are completed as there may not be sufficient demand from buyers or sellers. This also means that it may be difficult to adequately assess the value of any investment in the Shares.