HMS Victory recovery project?

[Physics guy]

On May 3, 2024, Odyssey Marine Exploration received a payment of $9.4 million arising from its residual interest in an unspecified shipwreck. An additional unspecified amount was paid to an Odyssey Board Member with an interest in the same shipwreck.

The link to the above SEC 8-K filing is here:

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000798528/915a5382-c187-44e2-8c33-3060422f92c6.pdf

The Dec 2015 purchaser was Monaco Financial LLC. The shipwrecks that Odyssey retained a residual interest in were HMS Victory and three others. The link to that Dec 2015 SEC 8-K filing is here:

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000798528/6c7b438a-e5e9-4c58-804a-d29af0e02694.pdf

I think the shipwreck related to last week’s payment is most likely either HMS Victory or one of the three other unspecified shipwrecks. My guess is someone could be planning a recovery of one of these shipwrecks. But there may be other interpretations of this SEC filing.

 

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[Magoopeter]

At least someone is making money. But how, very clever people involved in this, Ex J P Morgan, The man who bought the world come to mind.

 

[PDY25]

On May 3, 2024, Odyssey Marine Exploration received a payment of $9.4 million arising from its residual interest in an unspecified shipwreck. An additional unspecified amount was paid to an Odyssey Board Member with an interest in the same shipwreck.

View attachment 2147504
The link to the above SEC 8-K filing is here:

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000798528/915a5382-c187-44e2-8c33-3060422f92c6.pdf

The Dec 2015 purchaser was Monaco Financial LLC. The shipwrecks that Odyssey retained a residual interest in were HMS Victory and three others. The link to that Dec 2015 SEC 8-K filing is here:

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000798528/6c7b438a-e5e9-4c58-804a-d29af0e02694.pdf

I think the shipwreck related to last week’s payment is most likely either HMS Victory or one of the three other unspecified shipwrecks. My guess is someone could be planning a recovery of one of these shipwrecks. But there may be other interpretations of this SEC filing.

Odyssey was entitled to 21.25% of the proceeds of any shipwreck recovery by Magellan, and there were also some excluded projects whereby Odyssey could receive up to 50%.

I don't believe this has anything to do with the Victory. Any other guesses as to which shipwreck this could be? Could their info have been sold to someone else with Odyssey retaining their interest in the recovery? Argentum just lost a $43mm treasure to South Africa from the SS Tilawa, but reached a settlement before the decision was handed down, right around the time Odyssey received their payment.

 

[Physics guy]

It looks like Odyssey had already given up their interest in certain future Magellan recoveries on Oct 4, 2021, in return for cancellation of $14.5M of debt. The relevant SEC 8-K filing and press release of Oct 5, 2021 is here:

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000798528/a43c472b-862c-4643-9d05-dd2d08c691a5.pdf#page21

So the $9.4M had to be for something else. I thought the Victory plus the three unspecified shipwrecks were excluded from the above deal and thus might be the explanation, but now I’m not sure. I’m wondering what it was that was worth $9.4M. And I’m wondering what the three unspecified shipwrecks are and who owns the rights to them now.

 

[PDY25]

It looks like Odyssey had already given up their interest in certain future Magellan recoveries on Oct 4, 2021, in return for cancellation of $14.5M of debt. The relevant SEC 8-K filing and press release of Oct 5, 2021 is here:

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000798528/a43c472b-862c-4643-9d05-dd2d08c691a5.pdf#page21

So the $9.4M had to be for something else. I thought the Victory plus the three unspecified shipwrecks were excluded from the above deal and thus might be the explanation, but now I’m not sure. I’m wondering what it was that was worth $9.4M. And I’m wondering what the three unspecified shipwrecks are and who owns the rights to them now.

I found the answer! The ship is definitively the SS Tilawa which was an Odyssey Project codenamed Beatrix. Relevant Info starting at page 11 below.

https://www.quadrantchambers.com/sites/default/files/media/document/argentum_exploration_limited_v_the_silver_2020_ewhc_2323_admlty.pdf

 

[Physics guy]

Excellent! Congrats for solving the mystery by linking these two events! So Argentium actually got some settlement from South Africa and this was Odyssey’s share, if I read your post correctly?

 

[PDY25]

Excellent! Congrats for solving the mystery by linking these two events! So Argentium actually got some settlement from South Africa and this was Odyssey’s share, if I read your post correctly?

I think that Odyssey may have been paid by RSA for alerting them in 2016, to the fact that this treasure was being searched for and had likely been located. I imagine Odyssey was tracking the Seabed Worker. It says they signed a contract with the RSA in October of 2017, which was after the silver had already been salved. The settlement with Argentum would have been separate from this.

Interestingly, Marshall Wace was involved in the recovery of silver from the SS Mantola using the Seabed Worker to salve silver bars from the wreck and put them in wet storage until Odyssey's salvage contract with the DfT expired. Odyssey had previously used the Seabed Worker to find and explore the ship. Odyssey was a day late in filing an arrest on the ship and lost out on the silver, though there was a lawsuit and I believe a settlement, though I'm not sure if they were ever paid. This may have been some payback. You can read more about it in some of my previous posts.