The COST of the privilege of being able to invest with Wael Al-Mazeedi: BTU Power Company and BTU Power Company II

We know from the Betancourt litigation that Wael Al-Mazeedi has been trying to convince the investors in BTU Power Company (the ONLY fund he still "manages") to invest in his latest and greatest venture or be bought out on the terms that Wael wants.  In Wael's own words:

"Plaintiffs are also concerned that Betancourt could disrupt their delicate negotiations with DIB and other investors regarding the determination of whether their investments will roll-over into a restructured entity or, if not, whether they will negotiate a mutually acceptable redemption device."

We know there's still a BTU Power Company so there's been no roll-over and no redemption (just a lot of smoke and mirrors).  Dubai Islamic Bank, Qatar National Bank, and Qatar Investment Authority, and others are still "stuck" in BTU Power Company.  This has been going on since at least Fall 2007 (the time when Betancourt started working for BTU Ventures), and probably much, much earlier.

We also know that Wael Al-Mazeedi claims (so it must be true) that he is only concerned with making decisions and taking actions that are solely in the best interest of his investors. From his btupower.com website we get the following:

"...the perpetrators have failed to disrupt our mission to be a careful steward of our investors' investments in global energy assets."

Court records have provided us with some sketchy financial information from Wael Al-Mazeedi regarding the funds he has managed. We have copies of publicly available financial statements for:

• BTU Holdings Company and subsidiaries (from 31 December 2004)
• BTU Power Company (from 31 December 2003)

So, what are the results?

For BTU Power Company II we know from the IFIC litigation and Hayat litigation and analysis in this blog that:

• Wael Al-Mazeedi "paid" $100 million in cash and took out a loan for the balance of the $220 (actually, 236) million price tag for Meiya Power Company (BTU Power Company).
• He subsequently sold Meiya (BTU Power Company II) for about $306 million.
• Wael Al-Mazeedi claims $86 million were burned-up in "expenses."
• The investors go their money back and little else.

Summary:  As a private equity TITAN, Wael Al-Mazeedi "raised" $100 million from EQUITY investors and returned ~$100 million to those same investors about 2.5 yrs later... and he only had to burn through $86 million in expenses to accomplish that feat....

No doubt, Fidelity or other similar companies must manage their investments in a very different way.  That's why they will remain small (Fidelity: $3.3 trillion in assets under management) as long as they keep doing that.  On the other hand, Wael and Mitsue will continue to set new paths in the world of electric power, desalination, and finance.

As you can read in numerous blogs throughout the web, in Wael's (and Mitsue Oishi's) own words, BTU Industries is a:

worldwide powerhouse, one of the largest independent power producers on the planet

We'll show a brief analysis of how well the BTU Power Company fund has been performing.  Perhaps it has been a stellar performance, just like BTU Power Company II.  Maybe that's why Dubai Islamic Bank, Qatar National Bank, and Qatar Investment Authority were just so eager to "roll-over" their investment into QGEN, FateConsortium, MW Partners, etc. almost 4 yrs. ago.

We'll let the numbers speak for themselves...