Wheeling & Dealing: Wael Al Mazeedi and QGEN continue their march towards indisputable leadership in the hybrid solar energy industry

300 acres of desert

Latest reference we can find to this story is from the middle of October, 2011.

Lest we forget, QGEN is a self-declared "Global Industry Leader" and together with the other members of the Hybrid Energy Consortium, "...innovators in their respective specialties in the energy industry."  The City of Victorville was undoubtedly negotiating with a company they understood to be the following (using QGEN's own words):

•  QGEN is a U.S.-based technology-driven global developer, owner and operator of utility-scale power generation and water desalination projects. 
• QGEN’s hybrid plant designs integrate state-of-the-art renewable energy technologies into conventional fossil fuel power generation plant designs, with a focus on integrated solar combined cycle plants.

Bottom line, this past July QGEN Ltd. was attempting to purchase 300 acres of desert land from the city of Victorville.  We assume this is the Cayman Islands entity since the Massachusetts-registered company is QGEN (USA) Inc.

The Victorville Daily Press reported the following on July 18, 2011:

Possible deal with Massachusetts operation to revive shelved power plant

• "During closed session Tuesday night, the City Council will discuss selling that property to QGEN, a company that develops and operates utility-scale hybrid power plants around the world."

• "A deal to unload the land and advance the project would be welcome news for the city, which has been trying to sell VV2 off to the highest bidder for the last three years."

According to City Council records, "authorized representatives" of QGEN Ltd. and the City of Victorville conducted a "Closed Session Meeting" to discuss "price and terms of payment".  Who could those representatives possibly be???  We'll take a guess based on the info we've found in the internet.

Only person working for QGEN Ltd. that we've been able to document so far is Tibor Toth.

K. Tibor Toth CFO, QGEN Ltd. ktibortoth@gmail.com

According to the website for the ACG Board of Directors for 2011-2012:  "Tibor has 16 years of industry experience. Prior to joining Babson Capital's Mezzanine & Private Equity Group in 2006, Tibor was a Principal at Ascent Venture Partners and previously held positions at Lee Capital Holdings as a Vice President, at Berkshire Partners as an Associate and at Drexel Burnham Lambert as a corporate finance analyst.

He holds an S.B. in Management Science from MIT, an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and an M.E.M. in Manufacturing Engineering from the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University."

Ostensibly, the most hifalutin title Tibor has ever held is Chief Financial Officer of Cayman Islands-based QGEN Ltd. and he doesn't even freaking mention them in his bio for ACG. Moreover, just about everybody in the ACG 2011-2012 Board of Directors lists their corporate Email address in their bio... Tbore provides his personal gmail address... Curious fact.  He could have added a simple line to the effect that "Tibor collects a nice paycheck from QGEN Ltd.  Period.  End of Story."

AS an employee of QGEN Ltd. Tibor's business cards must have shown his corporate address as (something to the effect of):  c/o Maples & Calder, Cayman Islands... Attn: Simon Firth.

Question:  Is a Caymans Islands company doing business in Massachusetts, California, and other US states without being registered as a Foreign Corporation... hhhmmmmmmmm????

Soooooooo..... what is this Victorville project all about.  Actually the stories surrounding this project are just as interesting as those regarding QGEN.

We'll post the story shortly.  Some interim questions to consider.

[Note: there's an email in the Betancourt personnel files regarding Victorville 2 going back to early August 2008.  Victorville has been peddling this dog fast and furious for several years.  Wonder why QGEN is still playing with that flea-bitten puppy?  Also, we have a couple of data points that show that one or more people from Victorville visited this Blog on the very day they met with the QGEN Ltd. authorized representative.  They spent a fair amount of time on the blog page titled "What is QGEN"... No one from Victorville has visited this blog since that date and we know for a fact that QGEN was not one of the parties (as discussed below) submitting a proposal for the solar portion of VV2.  Due Diligence means that 1+1=2.  Maybe Tibor went into the meeting with the brilliant concept of offering the City of Victorville shares in clowngen in exchange for their land.]

• Did the City Council of Victorville ask QGEN Ltd. where their operational hybrid solar power plants are located?
• Where would all that money for the 300 acres of desert be coming from since QGEN doesn't have any revenue producing assets???  
• The Middle East Investors live in places that are completely surrounded by desert.  Why would they want someone to use their money to buy more sand?  [Observation:  maybe they DON'T]
• Where was the Hybrid Energy Consortium in all this?  They were set to dominate the wold of solar hybrid plants.  These "negotiations" were taking place just about the time of the 1st Anniversary for HEC.
• Victorville has repackaged this stinker of a project and is requesting bids.  Is QGEN ready to bid?  Proposal from respondents must include the following:  
• current financial statements of all entities involved as Project participants or part of management team.  [Yeah, right!  Good luck getting those.]
• shall include items such as audited financial statements not over twelve months old, annual reports, and any other applicable financial information. [Ibid]
• If not none of the above are available, respondent shall be expected to provide verifiable financial information for the past three years if available, and respondent’s Dunn & Bradstreet identification number, where available. [Ibid]
• shall include any and all pending litigation that could affect the viability of respondent’s proposal or respondent’s financial stability.  [Did someone say Hayat???]
• Oh yeah, the city is also looking for respondents to "Provide a deposit of 3% on a Cashier’s Check made out to the City of Victorville."  We can only imagine that they mean 3% of the "not to exceed priced proposed by the respondents".  Lets see.  50MW project at about $4,000/kw (a guesstimate) = $6 million.  [Has the QGEN check cleared yet, Victorville?  Oh, wait.  It had to be a Cashier's Check so that means it was never sent even though WAM will probably insist that it's in the mail.] 
• oops.... our bad... we just mentioned a few paragraphs above that neither qgen ltd. nor qgen (usa) inc. nor btu ventures nor btu power company nor btu industries holdings (usa) inc nor btu power company iii nor mw partners nor fate consortium nor hybrid energy consortium nor sede nor btu capital nor newco nor ??? (are you getting bored yet?) submitted a bid... so forget everything above regarding the check.