Mark Hawthorne
 |
| 34 Parliament Place: Pretty vacant. |
IT HAS only been a couple of months since
Full Disclosure
reported on the cosy little nest of publicly listed and inter-related
businesses operating out of 34 Parliament Place, West Perth, and it
seems some don't like all the attention.
The office building is, or was, the headquarters of
Range Resources,
Contact Uranium,
Continental Capital and
Artemis Resources
— companies that have records of sharing directors, doing business with
each other or, on occasions, both. But now that office is on the
market, and is expected to net well in excess of $3 million when agent
Jones Lang LaSalle puts in under the hammer next Thursday.
Of special note is that the building is owned by
Bostock Investments and, according to the latest filings with the
Australian Securities and Investments Commission, one
Steven Dellidis
of Doncaster East is the sole director and shareholder of Bostock.
That's the Steve Dellidis who is the muscle-car collecting buddy of
Melbourne day trader
Leo Khouri.
But Dellidis isn't listed as the beneficial owner of those Bostock shares. That, Full Disclosure hears, is Khouri himself.
It just goes to show that, despite an estimated $50 million of lost shares from the
Opes Prime fiasco, "The Gun" remains a cashed-up player.
According to the sign out the front, 34 Parliament Place is vacant,
which makes you wonder where all those companies that traded out of the
office are now headquartered. Especially as the ASX hasn't yet been
notified of any change of address for many of them.
Also of note are two other people with links to both Bostock and 34 Parliament Place. The company secretary of Bostock is
Jane Flegg,
who is also the company secretary of Contact Uranium, which rented
office space in the building. Flegg apparently also has ties with
companies linked with
John Stratton, who also had an office at 34 Parliament Place.
Four Corners reported this year that Stratton had been named a co-conspirator in the murder of former
Randgold & Exploration chief executive
Brett Kebble in Johannesburg in 2005.
A former director of Bostock, until October 2006, is
Peter Landau, an executive director of Range Resources and a man who also has strong ties with Stratton. Landau's private business,
Lacka Consulting, must be looking for a new office as well now that 34 Parliament Place is on the market.
Meanwhile, the breakaway Somali province of
Puntland is
giving Range Resources headaches as groups of feuding warlords vie for
power. The company has exclusive rights to drill for oil in Puntland.
According to Full Disclosure's man in Perth, there is a rift between
non-executive director Peter Landau and Range Resources managing
director
Michael Povey.
Landau was apparently set to quit the company until he discovered
the name of the man lining up to replace him — Khouri. Despite his Opes
Prime losses, Khouri has been a major investor in Range in recent
months. According to the Perth source, Puntland president
Adde Muse is close to Landau, and not as keen on muscle-car collectors.
Just to further complicate the story, a dissident Puntland website
that tracks the Range investment in the country, and has been accused
of spreading anti-Range propaganda, has reported that a state of
emergency was declared in Puntland last week. Little wonder, then, that
Range slipped a further 6.8% yesterday, down 1.5¢ to 20.5¢. The share
price has more than halved since the start of June, down from 53¢, but
has fought back from its August 2007 low of 15¢.
Turf wars are on
PUNTERS have been hit with the full fury of
Intralot's
advertising campaign in recent weeks, as the self-proclaimed "Luck
Factory" tries to win them over. Meanwhile, scores of Victorian
newsagents have felt the full fury of
Tatts Group's legal
department, with breach notices and legal letters issued to agents who
have had the temerity to locate their Intalot machines close to their
Tatts equipment.
Tatts plans to enforce agreements with newsagents under which
Tatts owns the right to a large portion of prime counter space, often
right near the front entrance. Agents found to be in breach are given
48 hours to relocate the machines to another position in their stores.
More than 40 regional agents have been issued with breach notices so
far, and even more in the Melbourne metropolitan region. And a similar
scenario is being repeated — that their local Tatts representative just
happens to drop by the day after an Intralot machine is installed.
Due process
COMMSEC is the bane of many a trader, but one of
Full Disclosure's contributors was pulling out his hair after a trade was rejected.
The disgruntled trader put in an online order right on 10am yesterday to sell 5464
Euroz shares at $3.92 and was happy to see his transaction sitting right near the top of the queue.
On open 4979 shares were done at that price, but it took
CommSec more than two minutes to "process" the order, so the trader missed the trade.
The given reason? As the sell price was 43¢ below the last trade on
Friday, it had to be checked for "orderly market rules". That should
have been an easy check — Euroz traded ex dividend yesterday, and the
dividend amount was 47¢.
Hardly what we'd call dumping the stock, despite the company's
Opes Prime woes.
Source:Theage.com.au
