This Locke deal seems a little odd, follow these breadcrumbs and see what conclusion you come with:
The announcement stated the agreement was through Locke Capital I, LLC. First thing about this company is it has no contact details or website. Secondly, even though it was established in 2021, there is no history of this company conducting any business with anyone other than AVZ.
The registered address of the company belongs to: The Johnson Law Group, personal injury lawyers out of Houston Texas.
Nick Jonson is the Founder of this company, that's the connection to Locke Capital in London, he owns both companies.
The problem here is whilst this one page website of Locke in London looks the part, the only online history this company has with it's investments in 3 years is one small deal, and the AVZ term-sheet. The address listed is a shared work area, or a common address used for a virtual office. They may have an office there or they may just be using the address.
The only online history for Locke Capital, London in three years is one deal with Outbound AI, and a news feed this website pickup up about the AVZ term sheet.
The one investment they did make had nothing to do with litigation funding and they were only a small player in the 16 million dollar funding deal. There were 2 main funders and 6 small funders, including Locke so their investment was probably less that 1 million dollars
Here are their financials, slim pickings. Where did they plan to get the 20 million from?
I might have watched to many conspiracy theory movies, but based on the above here are a couple of options.
Theory 1After funding one investment in 3 years for less than 1 million dollars which had nothing to do with litigation funding, Locke decided to fund the litigation costs to the tune of 20 million of an Australian miner in one of the most corrupt jurisdictions of the world.
Theory 2 (I'm not accusing anyone, this is just a hypotheses, which is all we can do without the facts)
There was never any intention of supplying funding, it was just a smoke-screen, an arrangement for a fee between all parties to give the illusion of an agreement. This announcement came out 5 days before the AGM and the showdown with MAGA, didn't anyone find that a little convenient?, Nigel might have wanted to ensure everyone was onboard with a super positive announcement. Another odd fact was there was no real effort to cut back on staff costs, any legitimate funder would have insisted on that. Sundance resources cut back to 3 directors and executive staff and their toral wage bill is less than 500k pa. Nigel may have felt that there would be a negotiated outcome from the pressure of the legal cases, he could them withdraw from the funding and he'd be the hero.
I've had a joint and probably pushing shit uphill and completely off the beaten track with these ideas but what other theories can you come up with that would explain the following:
Locke Capital I,LLC has no website, no contact details and no history of doing business in 3 years with anyone other than with AVZ (Locke Capital LLC is a totally different company to Locke Capital I, LLC)
Locke Capital I, LLC is owned by Nick Johnson, a personal injury lawyer
He also owns Locke Capital in London which has a one page web site, using an address that's associated with co-working or a probably just a virtual office.
Locke Capital in London also has had no visible online investments in 3 years other than the small one with Outbound AI and the AVZ term sheet
If they had signed other similar litigation agreements to AVZ why are they not visible online??
Their accounts indicate no real business activity is taking place.
Nick Sulman, who's listed on the Locke one page website used to be a solicitor in Australia, is he the Australian connection to this, whatever this is?
Anyways, connect the dots and see what conclusion you come up with.
