An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
Wake up. The brothers and sisters of City Harvest Church. This is to refinance the Galaxy Loan. Previous posting (1) Hi Patrick. The loan for first 20% had been paid up. The additional acquisition of 19.2% at $54m was financed with A loan of $50m from A BVI company, Galaxy Capital. These people are the vendors from the Indonesian consortium that bought the 80% stake originally. They are related to Wilmar International and they laughed all the way to the bank with ROI of 60+%. 1) True to form, KH turned a crisis into opportunity. A block of Wilmar shares was pledged by shareholders of Galaxy to get the $50m at a cost of 3%. Galaxy Capital then loaned to UPI at 10% with the 39.2% stake as collateral. KH & gang marked it up with an ANNUAL setup fee of 4-5% during the 3-year tenure, fleecing CHC $7-8m in the process. The repayment is $5m plus interest/fee biannually with a balloon payment of $25m at the end of third year. Balance is still $40m n KH & gang are trying to refinance it desperately. Previous effort to refinance balance $40m to 5 years was shot down as the marked up of annual 4-5% was still included, attempting to fleeceCHC additional $4-5m. Refinancing effort is still underway but kept away from Investment Committee which blocked previous refinancing push. 2) A&B Fund was depleted because KH & gang used A&B Fund to pay for rental at Expo n the hyper-inflated shifting n AVI equipment cost. This freed up $10+m from regular church budget EVERY YEAR so that they could deploy the freed-up $10+m YEARLY to "mission" which they don't have to give any itemized account. This is no small change considering the numerous moves since Expo days. The shifting cost during the first year at Suntec ALONE is $15m!!! broken into a few portions for masking purposes. Suntec was ideal site for KH & gang as they could justify at least 5 moves a year due to MICE needs. They intended to keep the A&B going as long as possible. 3) The $70.8m liability for AEI loan is not equity accounted as the loan is taken up by Suntec REIT, probably at HPIL which holds the 80% stake. If you take into the account of the liability ($70.8m AEI loan, $40m balance of Galaxy loan plus the exorbitant rates), the value of $130m+ A&B Fund is left with $10+m in the form of those hyper-inflated AVI equipment plus the $18m defaulted SOF loans owed by AMAC Capital. The last A&B campaign took in less than $10m and the next A&B campaign will be worse, especially after the 2nd tranche of trail in Aug. The most likely scenario is CHC will lose a big part of the 39.2% stake in Suntec and CHC will have to move back to JW to cut cost. This is such a wanton squandering of charity money. And we are talking about God's money. How sad.... Previous Posting (2) Hi Patrick. Yes, you are right about the rental contract but there are X+Y years options in the rental agreement which I won't get into details here. Suffice to say that there are still good people in CHC that are looking out for the church and they recognize the cash crunch that are getting worse by the month. All I can tell you is JW is free of any encumbrance. (Imagine this news headline: Lee Ka Shing's listed property vehicle in Singapore forecloses a megachurch in Singapore!! No sane businessman will allow that to happen.) Expo Hall 8 was only $3.5m a year but the numerous shiftings a year cost more than that. When the case broke, KH & gang worried that there would be uproars if the congregation come to know that 1) The so-called $310m package only has a 20% stake which cost $43.5m only plus projected 10 years usage. 2) Rental at Suntec is $15m/year and shifting components are $15m for first year alone when the dividend as co-owner was only $2m+/year. To pre-empt these issues, KH & gang did the followings: A) Buy another 19.2% stake in Suntec at $54m even when the A&B Fund ($130m+) was depleted already. Hence the high-interest rate Galaxy loan which was exacerbated with a markup. Instead of renting Expo 8 at $3.5m/year during AEI period, rented Expo Hall 1 at $12m+/year to make $15m/year rental at Suntec seemed more palatable. This was done when there was a drastic drop in the attendance. KH refused to cut down the expenses even when the cash crunch is so severe. I guess he probably did it for selfish reasons. i) Put up the facade the everything is ok. Along with the claim that he has a good chance of getting off the hook from the trail, he can get more private donations for legal/family funds. He is also hoping that the members will keep the tithes flowing. 2) When he goes to Changi and the finances crumble, he can comfort himself that CHC could not survive without him......... The way they are squandering the funds, moving back to JW seems to be the only option. They can't even afford Expo Hall 8 by then.
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