Podgorica (16 February 2011) – All the information that MANS made public on its website about the British company Cubus Lux is based on that company’s own financial statements. The graph highlighting Cubus Lux’s performance is taken from the British financial portal Interactive Investors (www.iii.co.uk), while the years listed on the graph indicate when the financial statement in question was released.
The reason that the graph does not include 2006 is best known to the people at Cubus Lux. It is therefore truly duplicitous to accuse MANS of attempting to deceive the public by leaving that year out. The financial statements of Cubus Lux for 2003, 2004 and 2005 were made in accordance with the accounting practices of the United Kingdom. After this, Cubus Lux adopted International Financial Reporting Standards. According to the European Union, these standards include a longer reporting period calculating accounts over 15 months.
It is for this reason that the financial statement for 2006 was completed over the course of 15 months. The report for 2006 was thus released on 31 March 2007, a fact that is clearly stipulated in the report itself. This is why the report is listed as appearing in 2007 according to the graph. Cubus Lux’s allegations that MANS deliberately omitted the data for 2006 are therefore malicious, since this was precisely the year the company itself switched to a longer accounting time-line.
Even if we accept the charges made, the report covering 2006 indicates that Cubus Lux suffered 130,000 GBP in losses in that year. This once again contradicts the claims made by the company’s representatives. All of this information is to be found in Cubus Lux’s own financial statements and it’s therefore simply incredible to think that they are still trying to deny the veracity of their own figures.
MANS also highlighted the more successful sides of Cubus Lux’s accounts on its website today, which again clearly show that even in the best case scenario this company could not have placed first in the Valdanos tender if the Tender Commission stuck to its own criteria.
As far as the fact that Cubus Lux is listed on the London and Frankfurt exchanges goes, we would kindly suggest to the representatives of this company not draw attention to this fact since their shares have generally declined in value – especially during 2008. The five year trend for Cubus Lux shares on both stock-exchanges can also be viewed on the MANS website.
Claims that Cubus Lux will sue MANS for a possible drop in the value of their shares are totally meaningless since we haven’t made public any information that wasn’t already available in the public domain.
The controversial financial statements concerning Cubus Lux’s losses only confirm that this company failed to fulfill key conditions of the Valdanos tender, starting with their years of experience in managing similar projects up to and including their annual turnover. These documents show that the company has issues with paying back its debts while it is simultaneously expects Montenegrin banks to help it finance projects on Valdanos.
We are particularly concerned about the silence from Vice President Vujica Lazović’s cabinet, given that he headed the Privatization Commission and the Tender Commission that made the decision to lease this property to Cubus Lux in the first place. We hope that Lazović understands that as a public servant he holds a responsibility towards Montenegro’s citizens. The announcements and reactions of Cubus Lux spokespeople can in now way replace his duty to inform the public in detail about how it was exactly that this company clinched the Valdanos deal.
At todays meeting, organized by Prime Minister Igor Lukšić’s cabinet and in a conversation with the PM’s adviser for privatization and capital projects, MANS once again voiced its concern with the transparency of the entire process. We once again requested that a meeting of the Privatization Council be immediately organized so that an annulment of the Valdanos decision in relation to Cubus Lux can be considered.
