ml just sold but who was the buyer, page-10

No wonder CFE share price has been under pressure .The russians are behind it all .

Signs of shady Russian share dealing/ MARK HAWTHORNE
December 12, 2008

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
YOU can forgive Cape Lambert's Iron Ore boss Tony Sage for feeling like a man under siege. Ever since the executive chairman secured $400 million in cash for the company's iron ore assets in Western Australia from China Metallurgical, the sharks have been circling.

Indeed, with each payment of $80 million from the Chinese has come even greater pressure to remove Sage from the Cape Lambert cashbox.

The first shark to circle was tenement dealer Mihran Shemessian. He's known as "Mick Manynames", due to the number of different spellings of his surname on documents.

Shemessian's Hong Kong-based company, Power United — owned in the name Shmazian — holds a touch over 10 per cent of Cape Lambert and, under a deal struck years ago, he is entitled to millions of dollars in royalties from the project. Shemessian tried to have day trader Leo "The Gun" Khouri of Opes Prime fame installed as a director of Cape Lambert, but that attempt failed.

That play for the company had a colourful enough cast, but the next in line to try to seize control of Cape Lambert has some international names. The latest move seems to be coming from Cape Lambert's biggest shareholder, Russian steel giant Evraz group, which owns 16 per cent of Cape Lambert and is controlled by Roman Abramovich.

Sage says of the moves for Cape Lambert: "We've increased security at home, and at the office."

Cyprus-based Unicredit Aton International has unexpectedly emerged as a substantial shareholder of Cape Lambert. That detail only came to light after Sage and the board hired international business intelligence firm Thomson Reuter to investigate a large number of share parcels owned by Cyprus-based companies.

Thomson Reuter found that Unicredit Aton — a financier that provides "access to Russian and international stock exchanges" — now controls 36.8 million Cape Lambert shares, or 7.28 per cent of the company.

After being flushed out by Thomson Reuter, Unicredit Aton lodged a substantial shareholder notice with the Australian Securities Exchange SX on Wednesday. But Unicredit Aton won't say on whose behalf it bought the Cape Lambert shares.

The board of Cape Lambert suspects that Evraz might be behind the Cyprus shareholding — putting it in control of 23.3 per cent of Cape Lambert and in breach of Australia's foreign investment rules. Evraz would need approval to move beyond 19.9 per cent ownership.

Cash-strapped Evraz may also be obliged to make a takeover offer for Cape Lambert — not a welcome thought for the biggest steel maker in Russia, as its share price has tumbled 90 per cent this year. "We've heard they are now shopping the Cape Lambert shareholding around and are trying to sell it," says Sage. "They need the money."

Abramovich is one of the world's wealthiest men and owner of England's Chelsea Football Club. According

to reports from Moscow, Abramovich's holding company Millhouse owns 36.4 per cent of Evraz. Newly installed Evraz chairman Alexander Abramov owns 24.3 per cent. The previous chairman, Alexander Frolov, has 12.1 per cent. Privat Group of the Ukraine, controlled by Gennady Bogolubov and Igor Kolomoisky, has 9.7 per cent.

It's a list of some of the most powerful men in Russia, and Cape Lambert's board has taken note of just where these men hold their Evraz shares.

The more Sage investigates, the more the evidence mounts that some of Russia's richest men flouted Australia's foreign investment and takeover laws in order to build a bigger stake in Cape Lambert. "We have informed Evraz that they may be in breach of Australia's foreign ownership laws," Sage says.

According to the latest annual report issued by Evraz, a Cyprus-registered company, Lanebrook, owns 69.5 per cent of Evraz's shares directly, and a further 6.8 per cent indirectly.

Lanebrook's shareholding structure is a mystery, but reports from Moscow and London suggest its owners include Abramovich, Frolov and Abramov.

The board of Cape Lambert is considering lodging a complaint with the Foreign Investment Review Board, but has so far been unable to link Evraz with Unicredit Aton.

"No query has yet been lodged with FIRB or any of the regulatory authorities in Australia," Cape Lambert spokesman David Tasker said.

A spokesman for the FIRB would not confirm if Evraz was under scrutiny, but confirmed that the board of Cape Lambert had not yet lodged a complaint