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Crystal Amber : CRS – requisition of LEAF

Crystal Amber, managed by Richard Bernstein (pictured), hold 10% of Leaf Clean Energy Company : LEAF and has decided to requisition an Extraordinary General Meeting to change LEAF’s Board and its investment strategy.

Crystal Amber say LEAF has three problems: visibility of the underlying values of Leaf’s investments (LEAF uses a DCF method to value its investment even though most of them are not generating cash), the current scale of annual running costs of Leaf, and its discount (close to 50%). They say they have met LEAF’s board and suggested that LEAF’s chief executive, Bran Keogh be replaced by Mark Lerdal of MP2 Capital LLP, who Crystal Amber say “has an enviable track record in the renewable energy and sustainable technology space.

Crystal Amber is proposing that Leaf be placed into orderly run off and that Mark Lerdal be given the responsibility of realising Leaf’s investment portfolio in a timely manner and returning the net assets to shareholders. It is proposed that Mark Lerdal is paid a base salary of $250,000 per annum together with an increasing incentive fee based on the amount of cash returned to shareholders per share.

Crystal Amber is also proposing that Stephen Coe is appointed as a non-executive director of the Company, at an annual fee of $70,000. Stephen Coe is a chartered accountant. After leaving Price Waterhouse in 1997, he worked in the fiduciary services industry with Bachmann Group and Investec Trust (Guernsey) Limited. He became self-employed in August 2006 providing services to financial services clients and is a director of a number of listed and unlisted investment funds and offshore companies including Raven Russia Limited, European Real Estate Investment Trust Limited, South African Property Opportunities PLC, Weiss Korean Opportunities Fund Limited and Trinity Capital PLC (and serves as Chairman of the Audit Committee for these companies).

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