Euroports is a major European port company, with 20 maritime terminals and six inland terminals. Up to 2019 it was owned by private equity investors (respectively, Antin, Arcus and Brookfield).<\/p>\n
In June 2019 it was sold to a consortium of PMV (an investment company owned by the Flemish regional government), FPIM (an investment company owned by the Belgian federal government) and, lastly, R-Logitech as the majority owner with 53.4 per cent. The Belgian government partners have 23.3 per cent each.<\/p>\n
The ownership of both PMV and FPIM \u2013 Belgian government companies – is clear and transparent. In contrast, however, the ultimate ownership of R-Logitech is not. In fact, it is judged to be opaque.<\/p>\n
Indeed, recent media reports suggest that its owners and managers are endeavoring to keep it this way. R-Logitech is owned by Monaco Resources Group (MRG) which is registered in Monaco. MRG was established in 2011 and has grown its revenue to \u20ac1 billion in 2019 (with a loss of \u20ac12 million). Most revenue (87 per cent) is generated in Europe.<\/p>\n
Apart from the acquisition of Euroports, MRG has also bought the distressed assets of Necotrans (the French logistics company focused on Africa) and a UK-based logistics concern.<\/p>\n
MRG\u2019s deal making and marketing material is very focused on developing in Africa. So far Africa only accounts for 12 per cent of its revenue but MRG has a number of high-profile contracts, such as the Guinea Garafiri bauxite project.<\/p>\n
MRG\u2019s interest in Africa piqued the interest of the informative Africa news service Africa Intelligence which has featured a number of articles that highlight the transparency issue and endeavour to throw some light on it.<\/p>\n
Africa Intelligence points out that MRG is owned by Cycorp First Investments, which is based in Cyprus and does not reveal its ultimate beneficiaries, and suggests that MRG\u2019s disclosures in a bond prospectus about certain members of its management and board members were selective to put it mildly.<\/p>\n
Africa Intelligence also referred to a letter from Alcoa (the US mining conglomerate), dated June 2016, in which Alcoa rules out working with MRG after \u201cpreliminary research on MRG has revealed some concerning issues regarding prior commercial activities.\u201d<\/p>\n
EXTRAORDINARY<\/strong><\/p>\n For any large ports and logistics company active in Europe to operate without fully disclosing its ultimate owners and sources of funding is extraordinary to say the least.<\/p>\n In the case of MRG, it does beg the question have its Belgian partners conducted full and proper due diligence on MRG and Cycorp First Investments? Equally, were these partners aware of the of the reservations of a large US-based mining conglomerate and its reported unwillingness to even meet with MRG?<\/p>\n Over the last few decades there has been growing pressure for companies to be more transparent \u2013 as epitomised by the EU\u2019s Transparency Directive introduced in 2004 and revised in 2013.<\/p>\n This aims to secure a flow of regulated information to deliver transparency with \u201cregulated information\u201d including financial reports, information on major holdings, voting rights, information disclosed pursuant to the Market Abuse Directive (2003\/6\/EC) etc. Securing proper disclosure is, however, still to a significant extent \u2018work in progress\u2019.<\/p>\n It is common knowledge that companies continue to be able to use jurisdictions with low disclosure requirements to circumvent jurisdictions with stricter standards. It is not realistic to think that such practices will go away anytime soon and even with stricter regulation it is foreseeable that there will still be loop-holes via which entities can hide key features such as ultimate ownership.<\/p>\n Such an incidence may, however, be considered most unusual where public-sector companies, using public funds, forge an alliance with a private entity, and particularly for the purpose of managing and operating a large group with activities across diverse countries.<\/p>\n Certainly, it seems most appropriate in conjunction with the PMV \u2013 FPIM alliance with MRG. MRG exercises control over extensive important European port infrastructure and clarity on company fundamentals \u2013 not least ownership \u2013 is essential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2019, Belgian public authorities formed a joint venture with the fast-growing company R-Logitechto purchase the terminal operating group Euroports. One year on, questions are increasingly being asked about the identity of R-Logitech\u2019s ultimate owners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post-script"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions\/500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}