AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR), the carcass left behind by Peter Earl after he ran it into the ground, reported last week that it had received a partial debt repayment from Patagonia Energy Group after it received a payment of $1 million from Energia del Sur in Argentina. Rurelec got $758,400, but is still owed over $13 million. So is this good news?

AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) has been an untold disaster on AIM. Having ditched the Peter Earl regime, the directors who somehow managed to keep this crock afloat have now left and the outlook is truly grim.

I commented yesterday on AIM-listed Rurelec’s (RUR) after-hours FY results which were slipped out at no-one-is-watching o’clock on Wednesday whilst Boris was announcing his cabinet reshuffle (a good time to bury bad news). But there are some details worth looking at – for a start, the involvement of former boss Peter Earl, who ran the company into the ground before he was shown the door.

I have covered the downs and further downs of AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) in some detail since the demise of former management led by Peter Earl, and marvelled at the fact that the company – despite everything thrown at it – is still here at all. But this morning’s announcement of a new “Independent” NED makes the stock totally uninvestable. So who is the mystery NED?

AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) has again warned that cash is extremely tight and income isn’t flowing in from Argentina. Well, we’ve heard it all before so many times and yet the company continues to survive (so far) but eventually there may come a day when it cannot.

AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) has released its audited FY17 numbers this morning. Once again we see losses (£5.8 million vs £9.3 million FY16) and the cash was down to just £163,000. We are told liquidity was a major issue for the Group in 2017 – you bet! We also see the auditor resigned – more on that below – and a previously unreported asset sale which leaves me rather puzzled. Finally, we are told there was no qualification of 2017 accounts which sounds great, but that was not quite all it seemed at first sight.

On 11 October AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) put out an announcement regarding a possible offer led by former head honcho Peter Earl and involving a company which was named as IEH Limited which may or may fund the deal. Yesterday a company called InterEnergy Holdings said that it thinks it was the company referred to as IEH Limited, and that it has no intention of making as offer – and there is no comment at all from Rurelec. 

Peter Earl, the former CEO of Rurelec (RUR), has come forward with a potential offer for the company. As bizarre development go, this is right up there with the best of them. Next up the re-appointment of Rob Terry to Watchstone (formerly Quindell)?

AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) updated the market last Thursday that its currently crocked power generation plant held in its JV Energia Del Sur in Argentina may get fixed rather sooner than first feared – even if the proposed repair sounds a bit of a Heath Robinson affair. Good news. The slightly more disconcerting news is that the Companies House website is showing an Auditor’s Resignation filing as being processed and available in five days.

Shares in AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) sprang into life late yesterday after the company released news of a three-way deal which looks to have relieved at least some of the balance sheet pressure the company has been under of late. It is not out of the woods by any means, but shareholders have had two positive RNSs which suggest that all may not be lost.

Having inherited a train wreck from Peter Earl and his former colleagues in the AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) boardroom, the current directors of the company have been living something of a hand-to-mouth existence surviving on scraps of short term finance while they try to rescue what has long appeared to be a basket case. But not satisfied with his fine work at the company (before departing in 2015), it seems Mr Earl has one last hurrah for his former shareholders. This morning the company announced receipt of Statutory Demands from AIM-executed IPSA (IPSA) and from Independent Power Corporation plc. Uh-oh.

Yesterday morning the Peter Earl trainwreck IPSA (IPSA) was booted off the AIM Casino having served its maximum time suspended pending financial clarification. In fact it had been suspended since September last year, once again making a mockery of AIM Rule 41. It has repeatedly warned shareholders that it could face a one-way trip to the corporate knackers’ yard and now, with no listing, one wonders whether administration now beckons – and whether this could be the beginning of the final chapter for fellow cash-strapped (and ex- of Peter Earl) Rurelec (RUR), itself recently restored to trading on AIM, for at the last count Rurelec owed IPSA £1.8 million.

Blow me down! Having been suspended for failing to get its accounts out on time AIM-listed Rurelec has finally got its calendar FY15 numbers out. Fair play to the two-man board: with an ongoing cash-crisis as they try to rescue the company from its dire situation the workload must be extreme. With the numbers now out (after-hours, of course!) the shares are expected to resume trading on Monday. As to the report, it is dreadful – and the finger of blame is firmly pointing in the direction of the old guard under Peter Earl. It is a shocking read.

Well you can't say that you were not warned over and over again. This afternoon AIM-listed Rurelec - which has a few balance sheet issues - announced that its FY15 results will not be released by the end of this month (ie by Thursday this week) and so the shares have been suspended. Apparently they are pencilled in for release in a couple of weeks' time but there has to be a question of whether Rurelec shares will ever trade again.

We have known that the Peter Earl AIM-listed train-wreck Rurelec (RUR) has been in some financial difficulty for some time. Mr Earl departed the scene last June, but the fire-fighting for the new board has been on-going ever since. Last night at no-one-is-watching o’clock (4.55pm) the company gave an update on its funding arrangements and trading in what must be a classic case-study for all MBA students on how to deliver bad news. Over to the ShareProphets RNS Translation service for the low-down on last night’s announcement…..

I have been bearish on AIM-listed Rurelec (RUR) all the way down from 3.75p in May. With the shares now down 79% since then, at 0.775p, I sense a notch on the bed-post at Deputy Sheriff of AIM Towers. Rurelec’s 54% controlling shareholder, Sterling Trust, has gone into administration and so we now have (to add to the balance sheet issues) a monster of a stock overhang. Also in the fray is the already suspended AIM-listed IPSA (IPSA), which sees a 30% stock overhang created.

I have already pointed to some uncertainty over the control of Rurelec (RUR) HERE as well as some financing issues HERE, after bridging finance of $12million appeared to have fallen through last week, although a long-awaited sale brought in $6.4million. Monday saw RNSs which showed that Rurelec has not one, but two debts currently causing sleepless nights. It does not look good, and the appointment of two Exec Directors seemingly at the insistence of one of the creditors is ominous.

It is always worth a gander through the after-hours RNSs to see what is being slipped out when no-one is looking. It is a common way for companies – especially those on the AIM Cesspit – to try to hide bad news from their shareholders. It simply doesn’t work, so why they bother is beyond me. But it is an immediate Red Flag. And that brings me to Rurelec plc (RUR). On Tuesday at 4.30pm – bang on market closing time - it released an RNS entitled ‘Extension of Radix Facility Agreement’. Gosh what an exciting life I lead: I just had to take a look…