Who couldn't see this coming (Northgate)

[oneoff]

Ceres Global Ag Corp. Announces Commencement of Legal Proceedings by The Scoular Company

TORONTO, June 16, 2014 /CNW/ - Ceres Global Ag Corp. ("Ceres" or the "Corporation") (TSX: CRP) announces that it has received a complaint initiated by The Scoular Company ("Scoular") in the United States District Court of the District of Minnesota. Scoular is seeking injunctive relief and unspecified damages relating to the development and construction of a grain facility at the Corporation's Northgate Commodity Logistics Centre.

The Corporation is currently reviewing the complaint and intends to vigorously defend against this action.

[oneoff]

And this has happened too Quote....


Director resignations at Ceres Global paves way for expansion of Northgate Commodity Logistics Hub

Republish ReprintRepublish OnlineRepublish OfflineReprintBarry Critchley | June 9, 2014 | Last Updated: Jun 9 2:53 PM ET
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.One year after a bitter proxy contest and 10 months after a management transition was put in place, the old is finally out at Ceres Global Ag Corp. Toronto-based company focused on two primary businesses: a Grain Storage, Handling and Merchandising unit, and a Commodity Logistics unit.

Monday Ceres announced two directors, chairman Gary Selke, and Tom Muir have resigned. Selke is a senior executive at Front Street Capital Management, the firm that used to manage Ceres until last summer when a change was made as part of the management transition agreement. Ceres also announced Douglas Speers has been made chairman.

As part of the resignation of the two directors, VN Capital, a New York based investment firm that led the proxy fight and which has been advocating change at the former closed end fund for a number of years, has bought the shares held by Selke, Muir and Michael Detlefsen, the company’s chief executive officer. In all VN Capital bought 1.05 million shares at $7 a share. After that purchase, VN, whose founding partner James Vanasek is a Ceres director, has a 16.1% stake in the company that went public in late 2007 at $10 a unit.

“The message to shareholders is that finally the conflict between Front Street and VN Capital has been resolved,” said Vanasek in an interview Monday.

One of the key issues between the two was the development of the company’s Northgate Commodity Logistics Hub. Based in Saskatchewan, Vanasek said VN wanted to develop the project much faster and with broader sources of capital (by issuing both debt and equity) than Selke, Muir and Detlefsen, wanted, who wanted to rely on proceeds from asset sales. That project will cost $90 million and could be a “game changer,” said Vanasek, adding that the project will involve the construction of a loop track, grain elevators and an energy site. Previously, Ceres has said that Northgate will “offer Canadian farmers and oil producers a new cost-competitive point-of-entry into the United States, the largest market in the world.”

[oneoff]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ceres-global-ag-corp-announces-110000418.html

Thats a link to a NEW $20 MILLION financial loan for the above company at 6.75% to 11% interest rates.

And here I thought one only gets a quarter per cent or so on deposits. OK maybe risk makes this double digit rate (6 months from now) seem reasonable.

Looks like there is lots of stuff going on below the radar. Don't expect to find out until it's all over. My guess is that Trans Canada pipelines
will soon be in the oil shipment by rail business; and Scoular will eat someone for lunch.

Who says the proposed Northgate to Moosomin NEB regulated oil line is "dead and buried"???. And then there is a proposed Northgate to Cromer seperate line. Why would they both terminate at "Northgate" and why the need for two (or possibly thre actual lines??)
Maybe TransCanada is just preparing a submission for the NEB to mull over for half a decade.

[hobbyfrmr]

Right from the start, Ceres did not have the balance sheet (assets, cash and share value) to successfully complete this project without strategic alignments. Enter Scoular company. According to press releases, (or how I interpret them), Ceres decided to go for it alone and told Scoular to go play elsewhere.
My guess is Northgate commodities hub will get 70% constructed then Ceres will run out of financing. A well heeled company will step in and finish the project,. Probably not Scoular, by then, they will have moved on to other opportunities.

[oneoff]

Key members of the board of directors have vacated their positions, sold their shares and moved on. Maybe turfed out would be acccurate.

There aren't many tracks in the mud leading to the mancamp; the construction machinery appears idle; and the landscape looks similar to what it entered freeze up last fall. And it was 10 feet of frost in the spring and 4 plus inches of rain on fresh disturbed soil. Insult piled on injury and misery.

They have missed their scheduled startup time and again and it looks more like a case of not enough money to pay the diesel fuel bill.
I agree that someone else is stepping in. Its new management for a start; and a grain elevator probably never was the cornerstone of this developpment. Even though it was initially sold locally in the little bit of gossip that leaked out.
Someone else previously reported the past management group "earned" near 15 million in fees for management; whilst shareholders lost 58 million and profits were never shown.

Profits would have earned another 20% commission on top of the 2% management fee. No wonder the shareholders got pretty disatisfied and revolted about a year ago.

All the euphoria (premier, council, press releases etc) are now quiet as things shake out and get to the squabbling stage.

[Hopperbin]

Oneoff?? Any chance farmers could step in at this point? Fna where are you when you could actually be usefull. Oneoff if someone is losing 30 million on this deal someone else will gain. Keep us posted.

[oneoff]

It is probably safe to say that the rail schedule on both sides of the border is run on oil industry time.

Only difference being that a few US politicians have enough political sense to demand that their constituents be served. Maybe our elected representatives look after their lobbiests; who are then expected; but certainly not directed to fulfil their obligations for service.

Cere's "modus operandi" was to purchase cheap and dispose at great margins. Development funding was to come from profits. The new management team will likely conduct business in a much different way; including borrowing to hasten project development.

But don't forget Scoular and how they were probably treated. I think anyone would be wise to wait and see how much is left after Scoular gets its day in court. And I think that the success of the Stewart Southern Rail is what the former Ceres management (and probably the present team running Ceres is still counting on at Northgate.

But no one has explained the interest that Trans Canada Pipelines has expressed in multiple lines terminating at that same Northgate SK port area. Just doesn't make sense to me to have two supposed competitors sharing the same area.

Remember that this is the "Agriville coffeshop" forum; and so one can speculate that just maybe Trans Canada has already reserved its place to be in the rail transloading business. Expansion of pipelines capacity is increasingly difficult to keep up to anywhere near the requirements of the crazy pace of resource withdrawal (particularly in the US); but also slated for this area.
Lets wait for oil rail transport to lose out to the benefits of pipeline movement of fluids; and then retake the strategic Port of Northgate.

SOMETHING THAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE BY SIMPLY RESERVING Some of the THE PUBLIC LANDS THAT WERE ALREADY IN MUNICIPAL HANDS and which were certainly never intended to be developed by Corus (otherwise now known as Ceres Global Ag.)

But that scenario fell on deaf council ears because the secret deal was already done. And obviously it didn't quite work out as planned; but we can count on no one having any idea of what the outcome will finally be.

[oneoff]

Just like in the grain trade......... blending very light crude (Bakken oil) with tar sands is where the real bucks are. Uniform grades only give access to handling charges. Bringing relative crap up to same grade is much more lucrative. And there is no sense doing that blending by shipping in opposite directions to where the major export markets are.