Polish news

posted from iii.co.uk

A letter to Tom Parkinson, QXL secretary h20kiwi 10
You as part of the QXL management must now accept that we, the shareholders and owners of your company are not going to accept your recommended take over offer i.e. Management buyout TIGER acquisition at £7.00/share. As it is your duty to look after and represent your share holders, it is now time to come clean and clear up a few issues for us. In my own opinion, I feel that the single most important entity which adds potential value to the QXL Ricardo group as a whole, above and beyond the £7.00/share offer, is QXL Poland Sp z.o.o. As we, the QXL ricardo group have won a preliminary legal victory in September 2004, when Rogowski, the lawyer used by Arjan Bakker and QXL Poland Sp z.o.o. to fraudulently issue new shares and effectively steal 92% of QXL Poland from the ricardo group, was found guilty on six counts of breach of professional ethics and Polish authorities disbarred him, you must be confident that the remainder of the legal case against Bakker and Rogowski will be won by QXL ricardo.

In 2003, QXL Poland Sp z.o.o. claimed that the annualised value of goods traded through its site was 400 million zlotys (£63 million). At the time of that announcement, you, the QXL ricardo group, commented about QXL Poland Sp z.o.o. “which, if the proceedings in Poland are successful, would confirm it as a very material asset of the QXL ricardo group.” and said "With QXL Poland, we'd be twice as big as we currently are."
(1) I ask how much of a material asset is QXL Poland?
(2) When (not if) will QXL Poland return to the QXL ricardo group?

To help you with answers to these questions, can I remind you of information currently in the public domain.

An assessment by a court-appointed independent evaluator (March 2003) put QXL Poland Sp. z.o.o.'s value at that time at about $13 million. QXL Poland Sp z.o.o. is in the hands of a court-appointed custodian with injunctions to stop Arjan Bakker and associates from selling QXL Poland assets.
QXL Ricardo group estimated in 2003 that QXL Poland Sp z.o.o. was growing at roughly 100% yearly. These estimates translate into QXL Poland Sp z.o.o.’s value = $26 million March 2004, and = $52 million March 2005.
By my estimates, QXL Poland alone should be valued at over £27 million; this is more than double the original TIGER offer and does not even value the remainder of the QXL group including the very successful Scandinavian sites, shame on you management.

As there are now other bona fide offers on the table, we the shareholders need to have a full understanding of the Polish proceedings. It is your duty to disclose this information so that we can make an informed decision about which offer to accept or to hold or sell on the open market. I suspect that the QXL ricardo group will announce full year (2004) profitability and that QXL Poland will return to the group in 2005. A price tag of £50 million would then not seem unreasonable for QXL ricardo group!

Kiwi