Montaigne to settle Malta debts
Montaigne CEO Pat Austin has promised that his company will settle all outstanding debt in Malta once audit work is completed.The audit needs to be completed prior to the AGM at the end of June.Montaigne Investment (Malta) Ltd had its licence suspended...
Montaigne CEO Pat Austin has promised that his company will settle all outstanding debt in Malta once audit work is completed.
The audit needs to be completed prior to the AGM at the end of June.
Montaigne Investment (Malta) Ltd had its licence suspended a few weeks ago because it failed to start operations after it was given a licence by the Malta Financial Services Authority in mid-2005.
"We have agreed to pay any outstanding debts once the audit is done and we have escrowed the monies. We certainly have conveyed this to any and all people that we deal with in Malta.
"The actual debt that we have in Malta is quite small but very important for us as we are committed to relaunching our corporate finance activities when the time is right," Mr Austin said.
"Part of the critical process of that is to finish the audit and pay any outstanding debts incurred by our financial services operations."
Explaining the circumstances that led to the licence being suspended, he said Montaigne Malta was launched because it was thought that there was potential corporate finance advisory work in Malta and the surrounding countries.
"As is typical of any company, we invested large sums of money to launch the company and to see what it would produce or not produce. This is a risky business; the upside is lucrative but the downside can be time consuming and sometimes there is lag time before you get a return on investment. Other times, the most intelligent thing is to shut the company and focus on other more profitable areas," Mr Austin said.
"In regards to financial services, we thought there may be some synergies so we went through the licensing process and completed it. But the reality was that we never saw the domestic market as a potential revenue area. Malta has a small population and financial services are well represented there. My job, as CEO, was to assess it as a revenue stream; we could have taken on a couple of friends of ours in Malta as clients and we would have fulfilled the licensed activity requirements but, in the end, I just did not see it as a large revenue stream for Montaigne."
The MFSA, he said, had been very fair and the withdrawing of the licence was not something that happened overnight.
"We had no Maltese financial services clients whatsoever and after the Montaigne management buy-out (last year), it was not a critical part of our expansion plan. We tried to ascertain if there were some synergies or potential acquisitions but, as I said, it is a very small population base that is well served by existing firms. At the end of the day, we opened an office, we got licensed, we brought in Maltese employees etc. and we tried to open ourselves to potential opportunities for business that fit our vision. So, I do not look at Malta as a negative. It is just a case of the environment changing and our focus being on other areas where we thought it would be more lucrative."
He pointed out that offices in Dublin and Slovakia and several other small satellite offices were closed as it was felt that the company should focus its energies on the emerging markets such as China, India, Poland and London. The intention is to buy a small office here to use as the European satellite office for corporate finance activities, he said.
He said non-licensed activities in Malta would continue, with the company looking at two investment projects on behalf of north American clients which could be quite lucrative.
The audit needs to be completed prior to the AGM at the end of June.
Montaigne Investment (Malta) Ltd had its licence suspended a few weeks ago because it failed to start operations after it was given a licence by the Malta Financial Services Authority in mid-2005.
"We have agreed to pay any outstanding debts once the audit is done and we have escrowed the monies. We certainly have conveyed this to any and all people that we deal with in Malta.
"The actual debt that we have in Malta is quite small but very important for us as we are committed to relaunching our corporate finance activities when the time is right," Mr Austin said.
"Part of the critical process of that is to finish the audit and pay any outstanding debts incurred by our financial services operations."
Explaining the circumstances that led to the licence being suspended, he said Montaigne Malta was launched because it was thought that there was potential corporate finance advisory work in Malta and the surrounding countries.
"As is typical of any company, we invested large sums of money to launch the company and to see what it would produce or not produce. This is a risky business; the upside is lucrative but the downside can be time consuming and sometimes there is lag time before you get a return on investment. Other times, the most intelligent thing is to shut the company and focus on other more profitable areas," Mr Austin said.
"In regards to financial services, we thought there may be some synergies so we went through the licensing process and completed it. But the reality was that we never saw the domestic market as a potential revenue area. Malta has a small population and financial services are well represented there. My job, as CEO, was to assess it as a revenue stream; we could have taken on a couple of friends of ours in Malta as clients and we would have fulfilled the licensed activity requirements but, in the end, I just did not see it as a large revenue stream for Montaigne."
The MFSA, he said, had been very fair and the withdrawing of the licence was not something that happened overnight.
"We had no Maltese financial services clients whatsoever and after the Montaigne management buy-out (last year), it was not a critical part of our expansion plan. We tried to ascertain if there were some synergies or potential acquisitions but, as I said, it is a very small population base that is well served by existing firms. At the end of the day, we opened an office, we got licensed, we brought in Maltese employees etc. and we tried to open ourselves to potential opportunities for business that fit our vision. So, I do not look at Malta as a negative. It is just a case of the environment changing and our focus being on other areas where we thought it would be more lucrative."
He pointed out that offices in Dublin and Slovakia and several other small satellite offices were closed as it was felt that the company should focus its energies on the emerging markets such as China, India, Poland and London. The intention is to buy a small office here to use as the European satellite office for corporate finance activities, he said.
He said non-licensed activities in Malta would continue, with the company looking at two investment projects on behalf of north American clients which could be quite lucrative.