A whistleblower has claimed the investment manager of the ThomasLloyd Energy Impact Trust withheld material information relating to the ‘RUMS’ solar project in India from its board.
The project ran into trouble, leading to a sequence of events which caused the shares to be suspended.
The specific claim made by the unnamed party is that ThomasLloyd Global Asset Management was aware of the details relating to the RUMS project by August 2022, but failed to divulge them in a timely manner.
In a stock exchange statement on the matter issued today (15 August), the board said the fact that the costs of the RUMS project had increased significantly such that a capital injection would be needed, was not properly disclosed.
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“In the board’s view, at that point it would have been apparent that the RUMS Project would not be commercially viable,” it stated. “The investment manager was told these matters by SolarArise, and when it did its own work to check, this was confirmed in its own reports.
“Furthermore, the scale of the capital injection required would have meant that a key restriction in the company’s investment policy would have been breached. However, the board was not told of these issues at the time.”
“In fact, at the December board meeting, the board was told that no additional equity was required,” the TLEI board continued. “It was not until February 2023 that it was suggested that any sort of capital injection from the company would be needed. This all suggests that a deliberate decision was made by the investment manager not to inform the board.”
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QuotedData analyst Andrew Courtney commented: “From this announcement, it now appears apparent that as early as August 2022, the investment manager knew that the costs of the RUMS Project had increased significantly such that a significant capital injection into SolarArise would be needed, which according to the information supplied in the release, implies that a deliberate decision was made by the investment manager not to inform the board.
“We could easily envisage legal action here, by the board against the manager or by shareholders against the manager.”
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