Gulf Keystone – the Questions Todd Kozel is too cowardly to answer
At the weekend I challenged Todd Kozel, the grotesquely overpaid CEO of Gulf Keystone (GKP) to record a video interview with me. His Bulletin Board moron fans reckon that I talk cock and so if they are right Todd would wipe the floor with me. I offered to travel anywhere in the world, except to places where Jew Hating bigots might string me up for having an Israeli stamp on my passport – places like Kurdistan, Iran and parts of Bradford. Todd’s PR man says that he won’t do it. Todd is too cowardly to answer questions such as….
The questions Todd should have been asked at the analysts meeting were not asked. Perhaps those who penned bullish notes with daft share prices oh so recently were embarrassed. Perhaps oil analysts these days are just as thick as the oil Gulf pumps out but cannot seem to monetize. Whatever the Bulletin Board Morons might say as a long term Gulf Bear ( the Morons & bigots being bulls) I have no blushes on this one. I have been right so far and remain right. I remain an “out and proud” bear.
So what would I have asked Todd. This is not an exhaustive list but would have fiilled session one of Frost vs. Nixon, Winnifrith vs. Kozel.
1. When you dumped £21 million of shares last year brokers opined that Gulf shares were hugely undervalued. Given your seven figure salary which would support bank debt, why did you not borrow at least some money and hold at least some of your Gulf stock?
2. How does a man earning millions of pounds a year manage to run up a £21 million commitment?
3. A well run finance department in a £1 billion capitalised company would not stun investors with news that the company was less than 10 weeks from insolvency – do you regard your finance department as well run? Is it not time to fire your FD?
4. The yield to maturity on existing Bonds is now c15%. That is a junk bond type yield. Do you consider your bonds as junk? How do explain the pricing? IS the market wrong?
5. If I can get a yield to maturity of 15% on existing Gulf Bonds why should any potential investor in your new bonds consider investing at any less of an attractive term? How do you see your new bonds being priced?
6. You state that your peak requirement for new funding is $103 million. So why are you raising $250 million?
7. In your cashflow projections you predicate those projections on a ramp up in sales. Given you have never met operational output targets before why do you think that it will be different this time?
8. You have stated that you have “sold” 690,000 barrels of your oil but refuse to disclose at what price and what gross margin and indeed when you will be paid. Given that the first oil was shipped on January 1st do you not consider it odd that almost 12 weeks later you still can’t tell us what price you will be paid or indeed when you will be paid?
9. Will your terms of trade going forward be on a similar basis?
10. In your prospectus for main market admission you refer to a three month period this summer when output will be zero. For once I do believe that you will hit this operational target. But can you explain why you need this downtime?
11. I note that a Genel director traded shares yesterday and it cannot thus be in a closed period, that is to say he could not have traded if Genel was planning a bid for Gulf or its assets. If, when Gulf is at its most vulnerable, Genel – the only potential trade buyer with real knowledge – is not interested in you, does that not tell you something?
12. You have sought to say that the Competent Persons report is uber-bearish but is it? Surely some well results (Well 6) indicate that there is downside risk in terms of the total size of your potential reserves as well as upside risk. Do you disagree?
13. Unlucky for some. In the past you have sought to justify your obscene remuneration because you have delivered shareholder value. Given the share price slump, the, missed operational targets and the weakness of the balance sheet will you now be taking a pay cut?
Naturally I have follow up questions depending on Todd’s answers and I have a few more questions on pipelines, Iraqi/Kurd relations and other matters but I was saving them for the second interview. But it seems that Todd is too chicken to face a grilling from a man who the Bulletin Board Morons who still think Gulf is a buy, regard as a lightweight who does not know what he is talking about.
Go-on Todd let’s do the interview. Where shall we meet?
Tom Winnifrith has recently published a new Amazon listed Book "The 49 Golden Rules of Making Money from Shares"
http://www.shareprophets.advfn.com/view ... -to-answer
