Investor's Champion Blog
Provides refreshingly forthright, independent comment on predominantly small cap companies and specialist investment funds. Informed opinion, based on first-hand research, but pulls no punches in exposing management weaknesses.

The AIM Admission Document looks increasingly worthless to us!

A key document in the AIM Admission process is the Admission Document (‘AD’) which remains a source of reference for investors for many years to come post flotation. Time and time again we discover how companies quickly forget what they originally committed to!

Hidden towards the back of the AD one can generally come across information on Directors’ service agreements and terms of office.

Having dug into the AD for Zenergy Power from Aug 2006 we learned that former Chief Exec Jens Muller had entered into a service agreement with a business called Trithor that was the precursor to ZEN and one of the providers of HTS Technologies. This agreement provided for an annual salary of €94,999.92 and participation in the Trithor bonus scheme (up to €25,000 per annum). We also learn that Dr Müller entered into an appointment letter ZEN dealing with his position as an executive director of ZEN. No further information appears to be provided in connection with this appointment, however, for us there is a clear implication that his remuneration would be on similar terms to that at Trithor. It’s hard to justify how €120,000 of Trithor remuneration could become €215,000 from ZEN during a period when shares tumbled over 90%, the business consumed millions and very little appears to have been achieved at the operating level.

Many will be surprised to learn that the Board costs for this loss making venture totalled €718,000 in 2010 and €532,000 in 2009. It’s hard to gauge why they thought the Board should have benefited from an uplift in remuneration from 2009 to 2010, perhaps it was based on cash spent!

A more detailed commentary on Zenergy Power can be downlaoded from http://www.investorschampion.com/research/company/zenergy-power

 

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