Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
How to contact Progas Services
I suggest that you contact ProGas via Atlantis Oil & Gas.
The contact details are:
H G Hurtt
Atlantis Oil & Gas
Dallas Texas
Telephone: (972) 479 8810
email: hg@atlantisoilandgas.com
You should ask for details of Dan Polk, who is President of Atlantis Oil and Gas, and Owner of Progas.
You can kill two birds with one stone, by asking if he, or Progas, have concluded any joint venture investments with Texas Gulf Oil and Gas.
How To contact Texas Gulf Oil and Gas
Try the following:
Earnest H (Woody) DeLong (404) 979 3150
He incorporated the company, and is shown as the registered agent.
I think that you'll find the company is dormant. No office, no staff, no contracts, no income. Nothing.
The UBRG corporate/investment structure is simple.
NDR and Texas Gulf Oil & Gas are the only subsidiaries.
Texas Gulf buys interests in (oil and) gas and sells to NDR.
NDR then sells gas to Utilities etc.
UBRG can control how much profit each company makes from this inter-company trading. So, the profitable company will be Texas Gulf Oil & Gas (which UBRG reports as a 100% subsidiary).
As Texas Gulf Oil & Gas is a 100% subsidiary the costs of the Progas investment should be consolidated, and reported, in the UBRG 10K. So, the profit contribution from Texas Gulf Oil & Gas is a good indication of how well UBRG is doing as a business.
The reported costs from Texas Gulf Oil & Gas will show the level of investment with Progas. The reported income will show how much of the gas (that Progas is reported to have discovered) has been sold by UBRG/NDR.
The other companies you refer to (Pacific Rim and Progas) are not UBRG acquisitions or subsidiaries. They are not even JVs. They are contracts. UBRG should receive consulting fees from Pacific Rim, and Texas Gulf Oil & Gas will pay drilling costs to Progas.
Taking everything at face value: it is safe to say that UBRG could never acquire either Pacific Rim or Progas. Therefore, it's advisable to focus on the contribution to profit and equity value from Texas Gulf Oil & Gas and NDR.
Have NDR/UBRG recently let people go, Jake?
If they have this has not been publicly reported.
I can assure you that I have never worked for or with UBRG/NDR. My client asked for a Due Diligence report, and that's why I researched the publicly available information on which my comments are based.
It's unlikely that the investment decisions of those who know the history of this company will be affected by my postings. If you read them correctly my comments do not bash the bet shareholders are taking on the UBRG share price.
My comments refer to the strengthe, or otherwise, of the underlying business. Most of the investors are gambling on sentiment. So my comments may be interesting to them, but probably not persuasive.
Stand firm, or sell, on the strength of your own sentiments.
Take my comments as a view on the business fundamentals.
UBRG reports 100% of NDR income by consolidation.
This is acceptable, as UBRG has 'effective control'. But there must be a Balance Sheet entry to deduct the 51% interest that UBRG does not own.
UBRG state that they have made a Balance Sheet adjustment for the 49% of NDR that they do not own.
I think the adjusment should be 51%, but I may be misunderstanding the note in their accounts.
There may be a rise on issue of the 10K. It seems to me that the price will depend on shareholder sentiment. The indications, from postings on this Board, is that investor sentiment is to gamble.
Nothing wrong with that.
I am agnostic on the UBRG stock.
My clients asked for DD and a business review of NDR/UBRG.
Their conclusion was not to invest in the business at this time. But they may have had a flutter with the stock.
If I had played the stock I would have sold earlier (because the fundamentals were not there to sustain the peak)with the intention of re-stocking after the 10K is issued.
Then it becomes a case of wait and see what happens.
But playing penny stocks is not my business, and I do not profess any expertise in the matter.
But there's no reason to knock the stock, or those who buy it as a gamble. That's the nature of this stock. It's a gamble. And there will be winners and losers.
My view, for what it's worth, is that the underlying business is a work in progress. Who knows if those currently in charge can build the business as well as they can promote it? I don't.
There will be no contract with Pacific Rim.
Here are some of the reasons:
1. The UBRG proposal to Pacific Rim is a 5-year consulting contract. It is not an equity investment and/or purchase deal.
2. Therefore it is very different to the deal concluded with NDR, where UBRG took over NDR's operations and 49% of it's income.
3. UBRG may be able to raise equity from the sources you suggest, but any equity from those sources will be raised for Pacific Rim. No equity will raised from those sources for UBRG.
4. Neither the $200 - $400m income nor the $20 - $40m profit that is projected by Vince Guest will belong to UBRG. It will be the income and profit of Pacific Rim (and the Nations they represent)
5. Even if UBRG receives a share in the income and profit through a JV, they can not book the entire amounts in the UBRG accounts. So the income and profits projected in the PR do not provide a basis for future UBRG profits, earnings or valuation on sale.
6. Someone will soon recognise that there is a conflict of interests for UBRG. Their consulting advice to Pacific Rim must be to sell their gas and lease their drilling rights etc at the best (highest)rates. But the interests of UBRG/NDR are best served by buying gas and leasing rights at the lowest rates.
Last, but not least:
9. It is a matter of time before Nations and Tribes represented by Pacific Rim ask: "why should we do an exclusive JV with a company that has no cash to speak of, no experience of drilling, marketing or selling oil, and only limited experience of selling gas, when we have so many assets at our disposal and so many investment sources we can attract?"
I think most investors have heavily discounted the value of the Pacific Rim LOI. Those that haven't, should.
Investors should focus on the ability of NDR to make UBRG profitable.
NDR profits will never cover UBRG operating costs.
You have begun to focus on the key issues.
1. NDR did get shafted, and not in a nice way. So it would be no surprise if they are unhappy about it.
2. If Gina of NDR (who knows about selling has) has been replaced by Vince (who knows nothing about selling gas) that change has not been reported to the SEC
3. According to the Agreement filed with the SEC UBRG holds 49% of NDR, and 2% is held by Vincent Guest, Solomon Ali and Richard Craven personally.
4. No share of NDR is held by Progas or Texas Gulf Oil and Gas. 5. The 2010 accounts, when filed, will show a loss. They cannot show anything but a loss. The NDR margin on sales is well below the UBRG operating costs. Period.
6. The accounts will continue to show a loss until NDR can finance its own buying/hedging and transportation of gas. As things stand the supplier sucks out the profit.
7. UBRG has failed to provide or find any finance to allow NDR to meet its (optimistic) projections
8. When Texas Gulf Oil and Gas begins to supply NDR there will be profits to be made. By Texas Gulf Oil and Gas.
9. If the profit is gathered in Texas Gulf Oil and Gas then NDR will be shafted again. And, again, not in a nice way.
10. UBRG shareholders should watch how the profit in Texas Gulf Oil and Gas is accounted for
On the basis of what you are now discussing in these posts the company remains a pick for an investment gamble. But the underlying business fundamentals do not yet inspire confidence.
A good post trafficmax. Fair and balanced.
New Horizons Energy Group is in Mt Dora Florida.
The place of business has the zip: FL 32757.
I don't think that they do training.
Fair comment on how S&P produces reports.
But I have searched every page of the UBRG report (April), without find anything in it that expresses an S&P opinion.
The first 4 pages repeat and summarize what has been reported in UBRG PRs and the company's (audited) annual accounts.
The first part of page 5 contains a review of the industry, which is not specific to UBRG.
Page 5 then shows UBRG in comparison to similar companies, and S&P provides a Quality Ranking. Unfortunately, and in common with 80% of the companies they are compared to, UBRG receives 'No Ranking'.
Page 6 is headed S&P Research Notes and other company news, and simply repeats a UBRG PR. The remaining 3 pages are disclaimers of one form or another.
It may be that this was merely a preliminary and that S&P then issued a later report which contained an opinion. Do you know if that's the case?
If S&P have not provided an opinion on the company then they're not really putting their name on the line and UBRG don't really run the risk of getting a bad report.
I had a look at Fidelity, which is one of the companies that pick up S&P reports, and provide copies to their clients. Fidelity make it absolutely clear that they neither they nor S&P verify the material, and that buyers should do their own due diligence. That is sound advice, which investors on this board should follow.
UBRG Directors still have many questions to answer.
The answers posted on Yahoo are not as conclusive as they appear. Let me comment on each, in turn.
1. UBRG raises long-term capital, and this enabled them to buy NDR
2. UBRG acquired 49% of NDR for a combination of cash and UBRG shares.
3. NDR sold to UBRG in return for UBRG arranging lines of credit
4. NDR sold to UBRG in return for UBRG arranging for and/or providing management expertise
5. UBRG and NDR are both properly registered
Neither the published accounts nor the contract referred to fully confirm these statements. Those documents show that:
1.UBRG raised about $300k by regularly issuing convertible loan notes to investors. But this was not used to buy NDR.
2. NDR was bought entirely with UBRG shares. UBRG provided no cash element. The UBRG shares used to buy 49% of NDR were valued at $250,000. The only 'cash' was an undertaking to raise a $1m loan on behalf of NDR. The contract explicitly states that UBRG will not provide that loan from their own resources.
3. There is no evidence in the accounts that UBRG ever raised more than $300k (see point 1)and no evidence in the cash flow that UBRG ever raised $1m for NDR. In fact UBRG have issued PRs saying that they failed to get a $300m line of credit 'from one of the top 3 banks' and there is no evidence that they ever received $30m in working capital by factoring their accounts receivable through Amerisource.
4. UBRG have no experience in buying and/or trading gas. Vince Guest is a 'financial' man and Solomon Ali is a PR man. Both come from a background of selling insurance. They announced in January that the detailed expertise on managing the purchase and delivery of gas was to be provided not by them, but by a company called New Horizons. UBRG reported that 'a member of the NDR Management has an interest in this company'
New Horizons is registered in Florida, is owned by a husband and wife, and has no employees. This means that the owner of New Horizons must be the member of NDR referred to in the UBRG PR, and this means that UBRG have not brought any expertise into NDR that NDR did not already have.
5. UBRG is registered with the SEC. NDR is a private LLC registered in Maryland. This latter point is not referred to in the answer from UBRG. If you look up NDR in the Maryland Register of Companies you'll find that it has been revoked and re-instated more than once. In fact it was re-instated immediately prior to the UBRG deal, and has failed to file since. It is currently 'not in good standing' in Maryland.
There's nothing untrue in what's been provided by UBRG, but they have certainly ignored or put the best gloss on the ugly bits.
So, does any of this make the stock a scam? Of course not.
And will any of this affect the share price? Again, of course not.
There was a brilliant post on this site recently, that set out the case for holding UBRG shares as a gamble. Few, if any, believe that there is a solid company behind the facade. But that doesn't stop you making money, while you can.
S&P do not entertain proven scams. But they do produce paid for reports. Those reports are not the same as their independent analyst reports, and the two types of report should not be confused.
UBRG have paid S&P to produce reports.
There is no proof that UBRG is a scam, so S&P can take the company's money to promote the stock.
All that means is that the UBRG Directors are innocent unless shown to be guilty. The S&P report does not add any credibility to the company, as it is merely an expensive PR.
If the report was an independently verified one that S&P placed their reputation behind the position would be very different. But it's not. They warn that the report is based on what they've been told by Management, and that they've not verified the information.
I agree, it's best to wait and see on both projected revenue and projected profit.
The background evidence is that NDR has enough experience in the industry to pass this sort of test. That supports your view on projected income.
But, that evidence also shows that they don't generate much of a gross profit (and no net profit) on sales.
If $21m to $42m sales could be predicted, what level of profit could be predicted, if UBRG pass the taste test?
UBRG $3.6m contract raises more questions than answers.
Setting aside the secrecy over identifying the customer here are some questions:
1. Who is Ken Harris? He is described as the President, and leader of the NDR team. But I have seen no notice of his appointment.
2. What has happened to Gina Roy? I've seen no notice that she has been replaced by Ken Harris.
3. Is Gina Roy still with NDR, and, if so, why has she has been replaced as President?
4. If Gina Roy has been replaced, is she still part of the NDR sales team that Ken Harris leads?
NDR is not a reporting company, and is not required to provide these details. But UBRG has 51% direct and indirect control of NDR. Any disruption in NDR is a material matter for UBRG, because NDR is the only source of UBRG trading income.
The following link shows that Ken Harris is a lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a practice in litigation and entertainment law. There's no evidence that he has any experience in selling natural gas. The evidence is that Rickey Hart and Gina Roy are the experienced sales people.
http://www.kenharrisassoc.com/
More questions:
5. UBRG is able to estimate gross revenue from the sale, so why not project the gross profit? After all, Ken Harris must know how much NDR paid for the gas that he's contracted to deliver.
6. Vince Guest has stated that sales in 2011 will generate profit margins of 6.6% (at least). He said this most recently in his formal letter to shareholders. So why does the PR not confirm that this sale is made at, or above, that level of profit margin?
7. UBRG have stated that they have their own gas supplies,from the well head, so is this to be a sale of gas from that (very profitable) source?
This PR was an opportunity lost. Another PR would be useful, to introduce Ken Harris, and show details of the management changes at NDR. Or, better still, an SEC filing.
Future 'revenue' PRs will carry more weight with Vince Guest's target audience of 'institutional investors and others' if they show that the new NDR team is achieving profits on sales (at or above industry standards).
UBRG did not get $36m Amerisource credit line.
Amerisource did not conclude the deal.
No credit was extended, and no credit was received.
It appears that Amerisource found out that NDR cannot sell its accounts receivable.
That Texas subsidiary is a new company, with no assets, no business... What's to value?
There is nothing going on at Universal Bio.
The 2 (maybe 3) directors have a shell with no sales staff, and no business.
The NDR investment produces good PR, but no profits.
There's no news of their other intended investments.
Their $500m investment chest remains uninvested.
Look closely at consolidated accounts.
Universal Bio filed accounts for Q2 to show income of $13.96m. This all came from consolidating sales made by NDR. So, still no sales from Universal Bio.
With a sales margin of 0.01% and costs of $470k. NDR/Universal Bio lost $455k on sales of $13.96m.
Decidedly unimpressive.
Action against Attorney continues, but case is weak.
The RCI case is good in parts, and they will probably win elements of it. But the damages will be negligible - because RCI has never developed a product, and cannot show any financial loss.
Market in RCI shares, but still no fundamentals.
Still no product, no sales, no staff, no business.
Shares best avoided.