Temporary Suspension of Cosalt shares - is Ross trying to steal the company again?

Update 12th June:

FTSE have announced that Cosalt PLC will be deleted from the FTSE All-Small, and FTSE Fledgling indices on 14th June 2012 following it's continued suspension.

At present I have no idea what this actually means for the future of the company, but it does rather seem to go along with David Ross's personal plan to take the company private!

The company, shareholders, and listing authorities should all be studying this situation very closely. Private Shareholders voted against the company being taken private earlier this year, and now the company has refused to publish it's results and therefore gets delisted from the stock exchange.

This whole debacle must now be bordering on illegal.

Watch this space....................

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Update for 1st June:

Another rather pointless RNS regarding the supposed lack of money as follows, basically saying how generous David Ross is and how he is still discussing with himself how to lend himself more money with a high rate of return to himself at the expense of the company; and how the shareholders still can't see the accounts of their own company!:

 Further to the announcement on 1 May 2012, the Board of Cosalt has agreed with Oval (a company wholly owned by David Ross) an extension of a further one month, to 30 June 2012, for repayment of the short term £1million credit facility provided by Oval.

 As announced on 16 May 2012 in its interim management statement, the Company is continuing discussions with David Ross, and with the Group's pension trustees and its banks to secure a longer term financing solution. Pending a successful conclusion of these discussions, the Group is not yet in a position to publish its Report and Accounts for the 12 months ended 31 December 2011.

 The Board is continuing to focus on finding a solution to the longer term finance needs of the Group and will make a further announcement as soon as possible.

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Update 16th May:

Today we have a frankly underwhelming RNS for an Interim Management Statement telling nobody anything at all; basically some waffle saying how bad everything is but with no real facts and figures, and not much else. Is this the warm-up for a pre-pack administration with David Ross getting his own money back from his loans when he picks up the company from the administrators?:

Cosalt announces its Interim Management Statement in respect of the period from 1 January to 15 May 2012.

On 10 January 2012, the Offer for the issued share capital of Cosalt by Oval, a Company wholly owned by the Chairman David Ross, was declared unconditional.  Following the closure of the Offer, Oval owned 56% of the issued share capital of Cosalt. During the period under review Oval has provided two short term unsecured loan facilities totaling £6 million, in addition to the Company's other borrowings of £14.9 million, of which £6.6 million is being provided or guaranteed by David Ross.

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As announced on 1 May 2012, the Company is continuing discussions with David Ross, and the Group's pension trustees and its banks to secure a long term financing solution to ensure it has sufficient working capital to sustain the business. The Group also stated that it is not yet in a position to publish its Report and Accounts for the 12 months ended 31 December 2011 as a result the Company requested that its ordinary shares be suspended from trading pending publication of its audited accounts.

Although Group sales were in line with the Board's budget, during the period there has been pressure on margin and cashflow. In addition, the Group's costbase and level of indebtedness continue to significantly constrain the business and are not sustainable over the longer term, in the absence of a new financing solution.

The Board is very focused on finding a solution for all parties involved in the discussions and will make a further announcement as soon as possible.

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Update 14th May 2012:

It would appear that David Ross, Chairman and majority owner of Cosalt is currently "out of the country" on a charity bike-ride!

This ride started in Olympia, Greece in mid April and is due to finish back in the UK on 18th May. Could this be the reason the accounts were not signed off at the end of April? Is he drumming up financial support for Cosalt along the way? Hopefully we will hear something useful when he returns to these shores.

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Is the Cosalt PLC Chairman and majority shareholder David Ross trying yet more underhanded methods to prise the company from it's owners?

For those following the roller-coaster ride which owning Cosalt shares has turned into; this is the latest installment:

A Temporary Suspension RNS was released on 1st May 2012 as follows:
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RNS Number : 4214C
Cosalt PLC
01 May 2012
Cosalt plc
("Cosalt" or the "Company")

Suspension of Listing

Further to the announcement made on 12 April 2012, the Board of Cosalt has agreed with Oval (a Company wholly owned by David Ross) an extension of one month to 31 May 2012 for repayment of the short term £1 million credit facility provided by Oval. The Company is continuing discussions with David Ross, and the Group's pension trustees and its banks to secure a long term financing solution to ensure it has sufficient working capital to sustain the business. Any such solution is expected to involve the issue of new equity share capital. Whilst the Board has continued to progress these discussions, their outcome remains uncertain, and the Group is not yet in a position to publish its Report and Accounts for the 12 months ended 31 December 2011 by 30 April 2012, as required by Disclosure & Transparency Rule 4.1.3. Accordingly the Company has requested that its ordinary shares be suspended from trading pending publication of its audited accounts.

A further announcement will be made as soon as possible.

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This RNS was released following the non-appearance of the company's Full Year results on 30th April, and now means that the 44% shareholders who are not David Ross have now been kept in the dark regarding the real company financial status and accounts since the Interim Results covering business up to 1st July 2011, when all was supposedly rosy. ( The "news" since then has all be negative but without any evidence).

This is a disgrace, where the Chairman owns the majority of the company, provides expensive loans to the company without referring the issue to the minority shareholders, doesn't provide any company information to the minority shareholders, other than occasional statements that the company needs more loans from him!

What is the point of listed-company regulation while these shenanigans can go on time after time?