After such a massive collapse with several interesting plot side stories, it’s hard to come up with a new subject. Luckily Van der Moolen recognized this and organized a kind of shareholder meeting this morning. Richard den Drijver won’t show up, as he’s on the run and hiding somewhere down south.
He even didn’t have the time to update is profile at the board of the Swiss boarding school Aiglon College. The school’s code of ethics are in fine contrast with the recent news coverage of mister Den Drijver (“humility and selflessness”). This boarding school appears to be one of the most expensive and exclusive of the world. They will get rid of RDD before Christmas, I assume.
Junior selling during lock-up
Selling his Van der Moolen shares during a lock up period is illegal. He sold all of ‘m at around 37 cent following the creditor protection. What makes it special is it’s fairly easy to prove. A fine duty here for the financial watchdogs who could make up for their earlier mistake of letting the man control the company on his own. According to former employees the RDD Family Foundation was able to sell the VDM shares during closed periods as Richard den Drijver didn’t run the foundation himself. His under aged son is legally in charge of the foundation. The Aiglon board member is apparently some kind of the late Michael Jackson; very good with children. And a sort of a freak, too.
Mr. Van der Moolen & sons
Then there’s the other family guy, also good with (his) children : Hans Kroon. All nasty rumours on handing over money to his children Gaby and Maurice and his brother Jimmy turn out to be exactly true. The (Dutch) website 925.nl nicknames the man “Mr. Van der Moolen & sons”.
Tax rebate ship arriving
Company is expecting 32 million euro from the German tax authorities to arrive any moment. Half of the money will be going to GSFS, the company of tax specialist Frank Vogel. I’m wondering what happened with VDM’s part of the claim. As the company was desperately searching for cash and time was running out, VDM could have sold their tax-claim with a huge discount to GSFS. That would have been a correct decision, but with the money ship arriving shortly afterwards a bitter moment of bad timing. Note: this is outright speculation, but GSFS was trying to buy the claims.
The shareholders won’t see a penny from the 16 million tax rebate, that’s for sure.
This morning the supervisory board duo Zwart and Paardekoper are giving some extra information in the meeting. Mainly thanks to FD’s journalists digging deeper in the corpse of Van der Moolen, most dirty laundry has already been exposed. Eventually the DNB or AFM will start extra investigations. Richard den Drijver will have concealed his tracks perfectly.
wondering how big VDM actually is. i didn't see any news about this on the newspapers or tv.
It's not big anymore.. VEB announced an official investigation, supported by Zwart and Paardekoper.
Strange that the impudent claim of Den Drijver was mentioned to the press, but not the impudent claims of Gerrit de Marez Oyens and Kroon.
VEB calls Den Drijver a drunk captain. I would say that the man is crazy. To the outsider, this may sound exaggerated. The insiders, that had to deal with this man, know he has some kind of disorder. The man has two faces, and he is rather scary, to be honest.
Anyone has an update on what happened with the wicked witch Lennie van der Ham?
Two faces? I've seen only one. A freak.
claims of de Marez Oyens and Kroon…which claims they have against VDM??
Info on claims Kroon and Marez Oyens:
Kroon: claims he is entiteled on 300.000 shares of VDM (signing bonus for accepting his board position in May this year)
Marez Oyens: claims he is entiteld on an extra € 50,000 for work he did for VDM outside his position as supervisory board member. The 50k is on top of his renumeration as supervisory board member for which he received € 60,000 already.
shame on you..Kroon and Oyens!!
Marez Oyens is alive? Thought he was dead already when he was a member of the board.. he acted like a dead man anyway..
any source for his claim?
300,000 shares in May was some €600,000.
What kind of "extra" "work" Gerrit de Marez Oyens claims he did for VDM, besides his primary role for VDM as chairman of the supervisory board?
300,000 shares is almost nothing now … as an insider he would not have been allowed to sell the shares back then anyhow … no wait, that did not stop RDD!
This sounds a lot like Kroon: denying any accountability as a board member ("because he stepped down 'voluntarily' before he (did not) received approval from the AFM, he was never 'officially' a board member"), yet claiming a sign-on bonus for NOT being a board member. Either the old man is completely senile, or he is brainwashed by spending too much time with RDD. This is the same Kroon who denied any involvement or knowledge of the loan to Avalon Group that cost VDM millions of $.
What about the other great Dutch financial institution DSB? Been a while since we had an old-fashioned bank-run in Holland… And admittedly they weren't active in trading, but despite that any interesting comments there?
Holland is a banana republic
whats happened to egberts company stealing money from the shaeholders by taking these positions at a stupid discount….. has the afm looked into this yet…..
enough about MOO. isn't everyone leaving all options these days as well?
Curvalue acquisition; From the January 2, 2006 press release:
Van der Moolen is pleased to announce that its acquisition of Curvalue Financial Services was
completed on January 2, 2006.
We expect operational integration of the two firms to be complete by the end of 2006 [ FAILED ]. Although we will seek to maximize the cost savings made possible by the combination [ FAILED ], we anticipate few if any staff reductions as a result of the acquisition [ FAILED ]. Most of the synergies arising from the combination will be on revenue rather than cost lines [ FAILED ].
With the integration of Curvalue and some additional development work, Van der Moolen's business will consist of three key activities, each offering considerable potential:
1) We expect our NYSE specialist unit to adapt successfully in the new Hybrid market environment [ FAILED ], and if the history of changes to the NYSE's market model is any guide, the Hybrid will stimulate trading activity [ FAILED ]. While our specialist unit will continue to be primarily dependent on external conditions to drive its growth, its fixed costs and capital intensity will be reduced [ FAILED ].
2) Our European trading activities will be greatly expanded [ FAILED ], and significantly improved in quality [ FAILED ]. With increased scope and scale, and with solid reserves of intellectual capital and technological sophistication to draw on [ HUH? ], they will be able to create a virtuous circle of innovation driving revenues which can fund further innovation [ FAILED ].
3) Starting from a competitively advantageous position [ HUH? ], the Online Trader brokerage activity that we have acquired with Curvalue will have very substantial room for growth [ FAILED ], not only in Europe [ FAILED ] but throughout the world [ FAILED ]. We want Online Trader to be the portal through which our customers worldwide can access all public markets in any instrument [ FAILED ].
Longer term, we expect integration to become more complete as we introduce principal
facilitation to the Online Trader platform [ FAILED ].
F.M.J. Böttcher, CEO of Van der Moolen, remarked, "We are delighted to welcome the
management and staff of Curvalue to the Van der Moolen Group. We believe that the combined firms are truly greater than the 'sum of their parts,' offering exciting growth opportunities well beyond the initially realizable cost synergies. This acquisition fulfills our strategic requirements for an activity that reinforces our European presence [ FAILED ], returns us to derivative trading and provides us with the means to develop an institutional customer business. Moreover Curvalue brings us an excellent successor [ FAILED ] for my position."
Correction: The last FAILED is a FAILED for the company and stakeholders, not a FAILED for Den Drijver en Kroon. For them it was a big $UCC€$.
from a psychological point of view, it is very interesting to observe that workers' frustration is vented through this medium for such an extended time. Get angry, get drunk, run for 10 miles, see a shrink…do whatever.. and then move on. Your comments are getting very boring.
@ 9:19 maybe the traders who comments here will move on. But, sadly for you, the watchdogs VEB, AFM, DNB and Ondernemingskamer won't move on. They are very interested in catching the crooks RDD, Kroon and eventually Eggbert… Maybe even Frank vd L will show up in their records as well…
I'm just a bystander watching the train wreck. My interest is what went wrong? and why?
To me it looks like the "what" is the aquisition of Curvalue and failing basic cash flow management.
The "why" seems to be either gross stupidity from the management, or fraud(?)
stupidity cn be painfull, but not THAT painfull
Anyone knows more about All Options and DSB. It seems like All wants to take over DSB..its on the news right now…
Now they say…they failed in taking over…
This morning I saw Allard on his bakfiets on the A7 near Wognum. He had a lekke band and stood on the pechstrook. So i gave him a ride and he told me he will try to buy dsb.
http://www.rtl.nl/(/financien/rtlz/nieuws/)/components/financien/rtlz/2009/weken_2009/42/1014_1110_europese_koper_voor_dsb.xml
All Capital haakt af in race om DSB Bank
All Capital is niet meer geïnteresseerd in de overname van DSB. De tijdsdruk en de hoge kapitaaleisen van De Nederlandsche Bank waren het bedrijf teveel.
does anybody know who mister M.H.B. KOK is ??he owns now 6.08 % in VDM ….(he is also in roodtesthouse, and was in van der hoop)…who is this misterious guy ?
Egbert's lover
yeah he is RDD lover and covers his ash….
Continue laughing; Hans Kroon's family is one of the biggest debtors to his bankrupt "love-baby" VDM. Yep, his son's company — between selling porn DVD's — was also selling (on paper) a brokerage platform to, I suppose, wanking traders.
where is egbert…
I wonder how long it will take until the formal confirmation is made that VDM has been robbed by the criminals Richard den D. from The Hague and Hans K. from Amsterdam. They won't end up in the Pieter Baan centre for these kind of crimes, and it is a pitty their personality problems won't be investigated.
I see in the report from the curator that the executive board secretary (was only RDD) is still there. Is that Lennie van de Ham, who is well known for her "integrity"?