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March 28, 2017 - Glaucus Responds to TFS_Quintis (ASX: TFC_QIN) March 21, 2017 - Glaucus is Short TFS Corp _ Quintis (ASX: TFC _ QIN)TFS Corporation Limited (ASX: TFC / QIN) (“TFS” or the “Company”), which today rebranded itself as Quintis, claims to
be the world’s largest manager of commercial Indian sandalwood plantations. Indian sandalwood produces aromatic heartwood, which can be processed for use as timber and oil. TFS is one of the last remaining publicly-listed agricultural
Managed Investment Schemes (“MIS”), a dangerous Australian investment structure beset by bankruptcies, investor losses
and fraud. Other notable Australian agri-businesses which relied heavily on MIS investors, such as Timbercorp, Great
Southern, Environinvest, Palandri Wines, Arafura Pearls, Australian Bight Abalone, and Forestry Enterprises Australia,
collapsed amid allegations of fraud, misleading marketing or Ponzi-like behavior. The collapse of these MIS companies
resulted in over AU$ 2 billion in aggregate losses, mostly suffered by Australian investors.
We believe that TFS will likely follow Timbercorp and Great Southern into ignominy and failure. In our opinion, TFS’s
model resembles such collapsed agricultural MIS companies and their Ponzi-like structure: TFS does not generate significant
cash from sales of its sandalwood, which for the most part has yet to be harvested. Instead, TFS is reliant on raising capital
to plant new vintages, operate its business, make payments on its ballooning debts and pay off earlier investors. Interest
payments reached 50% of cash EBITDA in FY 2016, and total borrowing has increased by another AU$ 65 million so far in
FY 2017. Without access to the capital markets, TFS’s financial statements indicate it will struggle to service its debts, let
alone repay them.
We believe that once investors scrutinize TFS’s misleading forecasts, dubious marketing materials and questionable
customers, TFS will lose the confidence of the capital markets it requires to survive. Thus, we value TFS’s shares at AU$
0.00.