Clear Leisure board closer to calculating company's value

Beleaguered investment company Clear Leisure updated the market on its investigations into just what it owns on Wednesday, providing some clarity - but remaining far from any final answers.

The AIM-traded company’s board was appointed to a firm in disarray in July 2015, and at the time promised to undertake a major due-diligence on the status of its investments.

On Wednesday, the board said the analysis of some investments was yet to be finished due to the legal complexity of the issues involved.

The Ondaland water park investment, owned by T.L.T. S.p.A. in Italy, had been in dispute due to confusion over the ownership of intermediate company SIPIEM S.p.A.

“We are now pleased to confirm that as the result of a favourable ruling by the Turin Court, Companies Section, Clear Leisure is now the legitimate controlling owner of 50.17% of SIPIEM. This court ruling represents a fundamental step for the company towards obtaining title to the T.L.T. S.p.A. shares,” the board confirmed,

Its Mediapolis investment was also facing issues, with a claim for EUR 39.65m against the Piedmont region filed last year for failing to issue a construction permit.

The company said its investigations to date had also uncovered historic claims on Mediapolis from suppliers, counterparts, banks and bondholders amounting to EUR 14.8m, although the current legitimacy of some of the claims remained unclear.

“The new fair value, to be used for the 2015 year end accounts, will be based on further findings and the outcome of legal and tax opinions currently being commissioned.”

Clear Leisure also owned 4.73% of Geosim, a developer of 3D modeling software, and had written off the value of the investment in the 2014 annual accounts.

“Clear Leisure has now been advised that the most recent round of fundraising by Geosim took place at a pre-money valuation in excess of $11m, corresponding to a valuation for Clear Leisure’s 533,990 shares of $667,487.“

In the rest of its portfolio, Clear Leisure was making progress on investigating its rights to any recoverable value in Fortune Cookie, SoSushi Company, Ascend Capital, Ora Hotel Group and Cambria Group

Clear Leisure CEO and executive chairman Francesco Gardin said he was pleased with the progress made over the last nine months, but had no doubt there were many more months of investigations before the full value of the company’s assets could be calculated.

“In the meantime we will continue to seek to realise the value in the asset base with a view to maximising shareholder value,” he said.

“We wish to thank our shareholders for their continuing patience and look forward to reporting further more positive results in the course of the remainder of the year.”