Gasol plc: founded and majority-owned by “a serial Liberian entrepreneur”
Comment posted by Ciccio – relative links available below:
A little update about Gasol plc. Despite hiding away from the public attention by withdrawing the company’s listing on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM, sometimes they feature again in some public website.
They are looking for a permanent full time analyst at their London office.
But what I found most interesting in that advert was their description about themselves:
About the Company
Gasol plc is a private energy company which invests in Gas-to-Power projects globally, across the oil & gas upstream, midstream and power generation sub-sectors. It was founded and is majority-owned by a serial Liberian entrepreneur, who was the original principal co-founder of Afren plc, which is today a LSE-listed $2.0bn market cap upstream E&P company focused on Africa.
Alongside Siemens Project Ventures and SOCAR Trading, Gasol is part of a consortium which is developing the €400m+ Malta LNG-to-Power project, comprising the financing & construction of a LNG import facility and a newbuild 200 MW CCGT power plant. Gasol is also currently evaluating upstream gas development opportunities in West Africa and looking to participate in other LNG import/ LNG-to-Power projects globally.
So there, now we know more about who controls Gasol plc, based on their statement, which cannot be easily verified. It says that “it (Gasol) is majority owned by a serial Liberian entrepreneur, who was the original principal co-founder of Afren plc…” So they are referring to Mr. Ethelbert J. L. Cooper. He is in fact the only name appearing now (after Dr. Rilwanu Lukman’s death) as a founder of African Gas Development Corporation Limited, a Seychelles company which according to Gasol’s 2013 Annual Report owned 66% of Gasol.
If he truly is the majority controller of Gasol, then we could conclude that 30% of Malta’s new gas power project is going to be controlled by a Liberian citizen.
But what if he is only a nominee shareholder of Gasol through AGDCL?
And his strong connection with Afren plc – doesn’t that lead to a sequence of questions after the recent suspension of two directors of Afren for alleged corruption?
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http://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/jobs-UK-London-Project_Finance_and_MA_Analyst_or_AVP.id00832142?query=cGFnZT0xJnBhZ2VTaXplPTI0JnNlYXJjaE1vZGU9REVGQVVMVF9TRUFSQ0gmZmlsdGVyR3JvdXBGb3JtLmluY2x1ZGVSZWZyZXNoZWQ9dHJ1ZSZmaWx0ZXJHcm91cEZvcm0uYnJhbmRzPTc0NzQ%3D
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=31338319
Ciccio, please get in touch.
[email protected] will find me
In Malta everything goes past serious scrutiny.
First there is the very potentially dangerous news of deflation. Today there is the news of a serious decline in Foreign Direct Investment. http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140825/local/foreign-investment-down-sharply-last-year.533149
A roadmap indeed.
But of course there is a roadmap, dear Kevin,and one of sorts that has been drafted well before the last elections. Just read between the lines and you’ll get your roadmap.
Remember Joseph Muscat’s “15-anti corruption measures” which he pledged before he became Prime Minister?
Labour’s Maltastar had listed them for us on 14 May 2010, and are copied further below for ease of reference.
http://www.maltastar.com/dart/20100514-pl-leader-announces-15-anti-corruption-measures
Among those 15 points, Muscat had promised the full implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, but recent FIA requests by the independent media, mainly The Malta Independent, remained unanswered. Included in those requests were questions about the Marsaxlokk gas-to-power project, of which Gasol plc is project leader.
What does Joseph Muscat have to hide, and why is the “fearless leader” backtracking on his 15-point plan against corruption? “Min ma jiggilidx il-korruzzjoni hu korrott,” he used to say before he became Prime Minister. Did he change his mind now?
One of the effects of those 15 points is that Muscat’s government would not deal with corrupt companies.
There is now strong evidence, including from pronouncements made by Gasol itself, that the affairs of Gasol and Afren are strongly interconnected. The two companies have had common links at the levels of the founders, board and strategic management levels: Afren CEO Mr. Osman Shahenshah was a board director of Gasol up to 2012, and Dr. Rilwanu Lukman, a co-founder of Afren with Mr. Shahenshah and with Mr. Ethelbert J.L. Cooper among others, was Chairman of Gasol up to his death on 21 July 2014. The two companies have an inter-related business strategy focusing mainly on oil and gas in ECOWAS countries in West Africa. The advert above and the interview with Gasol’s CEO on Gasol’s website provide some of the evidence of this.
In its Annual Report 2013, Gasol makes a solemn declaration:
“Compliance with the Bribery Act
At Gasol we uphold all laws relevant to countering bribery and corruption in all jurisdictions in which we operate,
including the Bribery Act 2010 which came into force on July 1 2011. In order to comply with the Bribery Act 2010,
the Company engaged external professionals to advise on implementing adequate procedures, including training its
staff at all levels on anti-bribery policies and communicating internally and externally its zero-tolerance approach to
bribery and corruption within our business and indeed within the businesses of those we work with.”
http://www.gasolplc.com/media/18507/2013_accounts.pdf
Afren definitely falls in the category of those businesses with which Gasol works. On 31 July, Afren’s CEO and COO were suspended after an independent investigation in Afren’s affairs by a firm of lawyers discovered “evidence” that they were involved in “unauthorised payments” – described as acts of corruption in certain sections of foreign media.
At this point, the “due diligence” experts at the Auberge de Castille – presumably the same ones who carried out due diligence on World Bank-blacklisted Shiv Nair – should ask a few questions to Gasol’s management, like what is their position of zero-tolerance on bribery vis-a-vis Afren now that two key directors of Afren – one of them a former director of Gasol – face allegations of corruption.
The 15 anti-corruption measures listed by Maltastar were:
1. Dr Muscat said a Labour Government would guarantee a supply of energy, and would start the process to change from heavy fuel to a more eco-friendly plant. “If the Government can find €100 million to build a new parliament then a Labour Government would find the money for people’s health,” Dr Muscat said.
2. But Labour will strengthen the role of the Auditor General, to deal in particular with cases where witnesses fail to collaborate.
3. A law will be implemented allowing all persons with information regarding corruption cases to come forward without facing charges
4. Politicians will face investigations, even after 10 years if involved in corruption cases.
5. Under Labour’s plans, the Maltese Government would expect politicians and responsible individuals to pay back the money to the Maltese people.
6. Blacklisted persons and companies would be automatically disqualified from bidding for governmental contracts for a period of time.
7. Companies blacklisted for corruption by international organisations will automatically be disqualified.
8.Parliamentary Secretaries and chairpersons would personally be held accountable should any files be found to be missing.
9. A Labour Government would also introduce a law on party finances to ensure that donations were clean and not the result of corruption.
10. The Freedom of information act will be fully implemented.
11. The European Directive 2007/66/ EC will be introduced to improve government transparency.
12. The chairpersons’ codes of ethics would be improved to avoid conflict of interests while a Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards would be chosen by Parliament to monitor the works of Member of Parliaments, including ministers and the Prime Minister.
13. A Parliamentary Commissioner for standards will be introduced, to monitor MPs’ and cabinet members’ behaviour.
14. The PL will do its best to guarantee a new electricity system which is in line with the country’s needs.
15. The Labour Party will also ensure that all persons who have information or are involved in some form of colaboration with cases of political corruption in the past can come forward without action being taken against them.
The new Labour government has practiced DoubleSpeak right from the beginning of their term in office. Time and time again we have seen actions that contradict the rhetoric. “Tista ma taqbilx maghna imma tista tahdem maghna” was closely followed by the removal of many, no matter how well qualified and experienced, because they were in some way associated with the PN. “Meritocracy” was followed by the appointment of all those who featured in the Labour campaign to positions of responsibility. The much touted “Malta Taghna Lkoll” slogan soon became Malta Taghna Biss.
Are we surprised that the contract with Henley and Partners has not been made public? No. Are we surprised that we no longer see any transparency in the way Government operates? No. And would we be surprised if Labour has been working with companies well known for their corrupt practices? No. Frankly I wouldn’t even be surprised if they had to bring the North Koreans here to train the police to beat up those who protest against the government. They’ve done it before!
This is too complicated and implicating bit of stock broking, analysis and assessment for them taghhom ilkoll to understand. We would be lucky as a nation if only half a dozen of them would understand what being a Liberian entrpreneur implies. Let alone understanding the implication of the Seychelles. Then come the percentage ownership across the floor and you have them taghhom ilkoll skidding on the ice rink. Bless them all, the long, the tall and the short taghhom ilkoll.
Nice to see you’re back. The Maltese political scene is not the same without you.
It seems that the little activity the Taghna Lkoll government manages to do is tainted with corruption: illegal hotel in Bugibba partially owned by Dalli’s IT partner, Sammut; Gozo Channel buys fuel at double the price from another Sammut associated with Enemalta fuel scandal.
I am still awaiting outcome of inquiries on assault on Zabbar police, Owen Bonnici’s car incident, parking at Helipad.
Here is a short “positive energy” bio of Gasol plc’s “serial Liberian entrepreneur,” Mr. Ethelbert J. L. Cooper, with a picture of him posing in front of a lovely painting.
http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/ethelbert-cooper
Let me guess the name of that painting: “The clowns at the Auberge de Castille”?
The short bio states:
“Additionally, Mr. Cooper’s iron ore focus continues in the present day through his leadership of African Iron Ore Group (“AIOG”), a company which is assembling a portfolio of prospective assets across Africa. AIOG’s existing activities include rights to develop rail and port infrastructure for the massive Simandou iron ore project in Guinea and similar positioning in Cameroon, where its strategic ally London AIM-listed International Mining & Infrastructure Corporation plc (“IMIC”) is completing the acquisition of a major new iron ore project.
In furtherance of these goals in the iron ore sector, Mr. Cooper has been the key figure in the formation of a formal alliance of large Chinese state-owned contractors which will support the projects of AIOG and IMIC by supplying an integrated package of rail, port, power and ore-processing infrastructure solutions, as well as by providing related project financing.”
Here is a picture and a news release of the momentous meeting of Mr. Cooper with “large Chinese state-owned contractors” China Railway Materials Commercial Corp – not to be confused with China Railways, a client of Shiv Nair, but both corporations are owned by the Chinese government (which is an ’employer’ of Shiv Nair) so they are effectively two subsidiaries of the same communist ‘holding.’
http://www.crmsc.com.cn/crmscnewEN/news_Show_user.asp?ID=1578
(Makes me wonder who was handling that camera…)
That meeting took place in June 2012.
It seems that the Chinese company established “win-win” (sounds like a Chinese phrase) relations with African Iron Ore Group “astonishingly fast:” in September 2013, AIOG signed an agreement with China Railway Materials.
http://www.imicplc.com/public/RegulatoryFilings/2013.09.05_IMIC_AIOG_Signs_Cooperation_Agreement_with_CRM.pdf
Also in September 2013, AIOG and its strategic partner IMIC plc opened a representative office in China.
http://m.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/mobile/news/detail.html?announcementId=11698049
In March 2014, Gasol plc – the company which we now know was founded and is majority-owned by Mr. Cooper – signed a “strategic partnership agreement” (this phrase sounds definitely British, but recently it has become intrinsically very Chinese) “under which AIOG appoints Gasol to be its exclusive partner for the provision of LNG to Gas to Power Solutions.”
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail.html?announcementId=11907916
And in May 2014, Gasol signed a “cooperation agreement” with China Machinery Engineering Corporation, which followed “from the Strategic Partnership Agreement that Gasol concluded recently with AIOG.”
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail.html?announcementId=11939594
The executive chairman of IMIC plc – the strategic partner of AIOG – is Mr. Haresh Kanabar, who is also a director of Gasol.
http://www.imicplc.com/our_board.aspx
Sitting alongside Mr. Kanabar on the board of IMIC there is Mr. Liu Guoping, a former Senior Vice President of China Railway Materials (see same link to the board of IMIC).
So, the connections may be a bit complex, but essentially there are strong links to China, and definitely to Chinese money, and to China’s operations in Africa. Mr. Cooper is a central figure in this process it seems that he is the one who established the links of Gasol to China.
I have this feeling that Mr. Cooper and Shiv Nair have met somewhere.
It would also be interesting to know if Mr. Barry Connor who leases villas to visitors in the Bahamas ever met Mr. Ethelbert J. L. Cooper, who as a Liberian, would probably pass as an American citizen.
Ethelbert Cooper would pass as an American citizen. He has dual American and Liberian citizenship.
http://www.africaintelligence.com/AMA/who-s-who/2010/11/03/ethelbert-cooper,86018273-ART
“Africa Mining Intelligence has learned that businessman Ethelbert Cooper, who holds dual American and Liberian citizenship, is currently putting together …”
What are the odds that he was one of the first applicants for a Maltese/EU passport?
Here is some information from the internet which shows that the “serial Liberian entrepreneur” who has the majority ownership of Gasol is a philanthropist.
1. Hutchins Centre
He is a donor to the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art at the Hutchins Centre – a new (2013) initiative of Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts (MA), USA).
http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/harvard/2013/09/harvard_announces_launch_of_hutchins_center_for_african_and_african_american_research_through_15m_gi.html
http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/
http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/cooper-gallery
The bio of Ethelbert Cooper has this introductory note:
“It is through the generosity and support of the Hutchins Center board member, Ethelbert Cooper, that the Cooper Gallery began its transformation from dream to reality. The gallery is proud to be named after him.”
2. African African-American Foundation
Mr. Cooper is also a trustee of the charity called African African-American Foundation, details of which are available online thanks to CitizenAudit.org, an excellent American website which publishes details from tax documents filed by nonprofit organisations but not otherwise made public by government.
https://www.citizenaudit.org/208835505/
Links to the 2008 and 2012 “Return of Organisation Exempt from Income Tax” for the foundation from CitizenAudit.org:
http://pdfs.citizenaudit.org/2009_07_EO/20-8835505_990_200812.pdf
http://pdfs.citizenaudit.org/2013_08_EO/20-8835505_990_201212.pdf
The 2008 return stated that “the Foundation is (was) in its organisational phase – has not began to provide program services” and that the foundation was registered in Reston, Virginia (VA).
The 2012 return stated that the “Foundation has been dormant since June 2010, but plan to restart operations and resume its mission in 2014.” By this time, the foundation was registered in Silver Spring, Maryland (MD).
Both returns show Mr. Ethelber JL Cooper as a trustee with others, and his address at The Quadrangle, Chelsea Harbour, which is a prestigious UK address. The 2008 return specifies the number 16 at The Quadrangle, which is a property worth about Stg 1.2 million.
http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/16-the-quadrangle/chelsea-harbour/london/sw10-0ug/23231489
Any Maltese neighbours at The Quadrangle?
For the benefit of readers, here is a picture of Mr. Ethelbert Cooper with Mr. Osman Shahenshah.
They are seen here doing philanthropy in New York on 9 March (yes, 9 March) 2010.
http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Osman+Shahenshah/Bonhams+NY+Africa+Now+Reception+Keep+Child/pheXVLN_k85
They are both co-founders with others (including the late Dr. Rilwanu Lukman who passed away on 21 July 2014, the same day Gasol plc, of which he was chairman, withdrew from the London Stock Exchange AIM listing) of Afren plc.
Mr. Shahenshah is also CEO of Afren.
Mr. Cooper is the founder and the majority owner of Gasol, whilst Mr. Shahenshah was a director up to 2012. Gasol’s business strategy is highly inter-linked with Afren’s.
On 31 July, Afren’s board suspended Mr. Shahenshah and COO Shahid Ullah following the revelation by an independent legal firm of “evidence” “of the receipt of unauthorised payments potentially for the benefit of the CEO and COO.” An investigation is ongoing.
The bio of Mr. Ethelbert J. L. Cooper published on the website of the Hutchins Centre of Harvard University (see my previous comments) refers to Mr. Cooper’s achievements of the 1980s (which amounts to the internet pre-history, and therefore impossible to verify from other sources), and then to more recent ones since 2004. But that leaves a huge gap of two decades, quite unusual for a bio of a ‘successful’ person worthy of having a Harvard institution named for him.
The gap was therefore an invitation to look into what he may have been up to in the 1990s, early 2000s.
And this is what the internet search engines found for me. I am sure the “due diligence” team at the Auberge de Clownstille will find this information, well, surprising and enlightening, if not amusing.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1098387/000093176300001663/0000931763-00-001663-0001.txt
This “general form for registration of securities” filed in June 2000 by Telemonde Inc with the US Securities and Exchange Commission lists Mr. Ethelbert J. L. Cooper (who was 45 at the time) as the Vice President of International Operations of Equitel, a company which Telemonde had bought in November 1999. It’s on page 66.
It also gives a short bio of Mr. Cooper:
“Mr. Cooper joined EquiTel in September 1999. He has extensive management and industrial experience throughout Africa. From 1981 until he joined Telemonde, he was chairman of a diversified project management and trading group, with interests in transportation and telecommunications operating in Southern and Western Africa.”
Strange: no mention of the LAMCO/LIMINCO iron ore mining venture, which got a mention by Harvard’s Hutchins Centre. And no mention of experience in iron ore businesses either.
It also says that in November 1999, Mr. Cooper had been issued 400,000 shares of Telemonde for “introduction of EquiTel to prospective joint venture partners in Africa.”
But Telemonde was a telecoms company set up in 1998 with a plan to ride on the wave of success of the dot.coms. Telemonde sold telecom bandwidths to internet companies. So when the dot.com bubble burst in late 2000, Telemonde faced the inevitable. By early 2002, sales had plummeted and profits turned to losses. Debts soared. The share price of Telemonde collapsed. By June 2002, the company’s worth – which at its peak had reached $500 million – had gone down to $370,000.
And Telemonde was not like any other company that got in trouble because of the dot.com bubble. Telemonde had been founded by Kevin Maxwell, son of the disgraced Robert Maxwell. Kevin had been declared bankrupt in the 1990s. He was discharged from the bankruptcy in 1995, but in that year he and his brother Ian were put on trial for the losses identified in the business of their father, in which business they had worked for many years. They were later acquitted, but Kevin had high hopes for Telemonde, which he wanted to use to dispel the negative reputation of the Maxwells which ensued after the death of Robert.
Telemonde’s business was not quite a clean one. The Guardian described it as “a company at the centre of a web of offshore subsidiaries, many of them scattered across secretive, sun-drenched locations, had a business model no one really understood.”
Eventually, Telemonde collapsed, but it did not do so before the attention of the UK media had turned on it. And although he came close to bankruptcy, Kevin managed to clear the Telemonde debt over the years that followed.
So Ethelbert Cooper has already been involved, even if indirectly, in the collapse of a business venture which put a very prominent person in serious trouble. If Gasol, as project leader, fails to deliver the Malta gas-to-power plant on time on 9 March 2015, this time Mr. Cooper will land Malta’s prime minister Joseph Muscat in trouble.
Isn’t it comforting to know that the project leadership of a Euro 370 million project involving a LNG tanker anchored in the middle of the populated Marsaxlokk Bay is in the hands of a former Vice President of International Operations at a subsidiary of a telecom company which was wiped away with the bursting of the dot.com bubble and which brought the son of Robert Maxwell to the brink of his second bankruptcy?
This time, if Mr. Cooper’s bubble bursts, it will not be due to the dot.com crisis. Who knows, maybe this time they will blame it on the gas? If the bubble explodes, let’s hope it does not take the LNG tanker with it.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/maxwells-telemonde-in-sales-dive-6301325.html
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/feb/17/newmedia.business
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1365444/Robert-Maxwell-daughter-Ghislaine-embroiled-Prince-Andrew-scandal.html
More about what Ethelbert J.L. Cooper was up to in the 1990s and which the website of the Hutchins Centre of the Harvard University does not tell us.
“Another Fund, Another Liberian”
http://mg.co.za/article/1997-12-12-another-fund-another-liberian
12 December 1997
“Two eminent businessmen resigned last year from an investment fund set up by Don Mkhwanazi after he paid himself and a Liberian consultant huge salaries and the fund’s first venture flopped.
Mkhwanazi founded the National Empowerment Trust in 1994, together with the National Empowerment Trust Investment Fund, which he chaired.
But the two most prominent members of the investment fund’s executive – vice-chair Oscar Dhlomo, a leading Durban businessman, and Gibson Thula, head of the Diamond Board – quit last year.
With start-up funds of R5-million, Mkhwanazi proposed paying himself a one-off fee of R144 000 and a monthly salary of R45 000. He is also understood to have made handsome payments totalling at least R500 000 to his Liberian consultant, Ethelbert Cooper. Mkhwanazi also proposed that the fund pay for Cooper’s relocation to Durban.
Cooper is a close associate of Emanuel Shaw II and a director of International Advisory Services (IAS). IAS was set up last year by Mkhwanazi’s lawyers and was awarded the R3- million contract to advise the Central Energy Fund, which Mkhwanazi chairs. Shaw II and his son, Emanuel Shaw III, occupy offices at the energy fund’s Sandton headquarters…”
Cooper made his money in the pre-civil war Liberia as part of the Americo-Liberian elite’s exploitation of the indigenous population. Black colonialism. Anyway, his strategy of association with the Chinese has failed in Guinea, Liberia and Cameroon. He offered the Chinese local influence via Afren-like cultural activities but has let them down by failure to deliver. Malta should watch out.