Breaking news: Bioking bankrupt.
According to a blogger on Dutch forum ppo.nu, Dutch biodiesel equipment manufacturer Bioking closed its doors and sent home all personnel without salary. The website http://www.bioking.nl is down and their sister company Algaelink, according to its website homepage, is said to be based in Spain, while only last week their headquarters were in Roosendaal, The Netherlands, in the same building as Bioking ( www.algaelink.com ) What’s going on?
Today the creditors of the company have been informed by Moeliker & Platteeuw lawyers of Middelburg about the financial situation. At least what they believe that the situation is, as the real situation as we know it is much more complicated.
Bioking was founded somewhere in 2005 as a sole proprietor, then came Bioking Inc., a Delaware corporation which after some time spawned a Dutch BV called Bioking BV. More BV´s were founded on top of Algaelink, a sister company of Bioking BV founded with money earned in Bioking BV. Are you still there? On top of the Bioking Holding BV two other holdings were put, each fully owned by father and son Van de Ven (see above picture). In the press they claimed turnovers of several millions a year. They were succesful. At least that is what the company with the many faces wanted you to believe. The reality is that the company has been taking deposits from customers without delivering any equipment. An example: In the fall of 2006, Biomac ( www.biomac.com.my ) of Malaysia paid Bioking EUR 350000 deposit for a EUR 3.5M palm oil refinery and biodiesel plant which was never delivered despite a lawsuit in 2007. At the same time Hans van der Ven, Biokings owner, bought a Bentley (the choice of success) and moved the company into a larger building in Roosendaal to set up the facade and lure other clueless prospects and investors into his new trap: algae photobioreactors. At that time Bioking BV was already dead meat. Totally emptied out. As the bankruptcy came near, Bioking BV was renamed into the obscure VMA Trading BV which now is officialy bankrupt. For more details download the registration from the Dutch chamber of commerce.
Mr Dick Bont was a former selling consultant working for Bioking BV before and after the algae photobioreactor business was alienated from Bioking into a new company Algaelink. He left the company because, as he himself states, he was forced to lie to customers about the production capacity of the photobioreactors.
Today, all remainings of Bioking equipment have been left behind and one of the last attempts of Bioking to produce a working piece of equipment has now been rebranded into Algaelink equipment and you can find it on the Algaelink website. Mr Hans van de Ven is likely to pull the same trick he pulled with Bioking with Algaelink again. You have been warned.
I’m delighted to see at least one part of this charlatans business fall.
Hans van der Ven falls well into the category of opportunist. He is undoubtedly the ‘rip-off’ King, which; might have been a more apt name for his business. No Algal knowledge, no understanding of the technical constraints and no concern for those investing their own hard earned cash into this evolving and very necessary sector.
I look forward to hearing the next positive piece of news, Algaelink dies too!
Unfortunately, he and others like him, give those of us working ethically within the sector, a very bad reputation.
It really is time that investors and potential end users do some serious due diligence for themselves, challenge the hype and do some solid homework. There really are some excellent Algae production systems on the market, with proven track records too, A BioFence would be a very sensible place to start!
He should change his name in van de Scam
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[...] Failliet?? wat zijn de gevolgen voor algaelink? 13 10 2008 Volgens dit bericht is Bioking failliet. Wat zullen de gevolgen zijn voor dochter Algaelink. Algaelink levert omstreeks [...]
I would like the author of this article to contact me, i have some further information on these people and company…thanks
hi
i would like to know more about this scame of bio king
Can anybody with a current claim against Bioking Holdings BV or Bioking BV please contact us urgently. We were frauded and need another claimant in order to take the case further. E-mail annelie@blue-square.co.za
I would like to know if anyone ever produced quality bio diesel with a bio king installation, whether small or large.
I would like to know if somebody knows a specialist in bioking technology?
My name is Sasho Pavlovski and i was one of the company how whanted to buy a algae photobioreactor, In 10 of June 2008 i was in Roosendaal to see the photobioreactor and how it works, but it was very good to be true. And i say NO TANKS….
Sasho Pavlovski from Macedonia..
Hi,
I was very excited regarding biodiesel from algae. It sounded perfect. After some research, mainly a study procurred by American government, there is no way to produce biodiesel from algae. One may succced to cultivate algae as dietary supplement, but there is no way to produce algae at competitve prices for biodiesel. Solution may be 50 years away, if at all.
PS I also added your RSS feed.