Rolf Voulon, the owner of a therapeutic massage venue and self-described in web ads as ''Perth's best landlord helps unemployed with homes'', has added another item to his credits, substantial investor in iron ore.
Voulon's corporate stable has bobbed up with a little more than 5 per cent of Padbury Mining. It is Aurium's joint venture partner in the yet-to-be-refined Peak Hill iron ore discovery.
Last year Padbury was fighting for its existence with one of Perth's better known mining landlords, Tony Sage. His company, Fe Ltd, was both trying to take it over and roll the board. Sage lost both battles.
Voulon told Insider yesterday that he was certainly not associated with the Sage camp, but reckoned that Padbury was on a good thing and was undervalued by the market at its current price of 3? a share.
Some time this week he may have a good idea whether the play is working because Padbury's delayed JORC report, the only estimates for a mineral deposit acceptable to the ASX, is expected to be released.
Padbury's managing director, Gary Stokes, told the market a month ago that the company had ''expressed its strong dissatisfaction'' to the lab doing the sampling about the delays, which meant there would be no report until late this month.
Stokes is now at a mining conference in Hong Kong, along with a fair portion of the local exploration industry, and his chairman, John Saunders, is reportedly in Beijing chatting to potential buyers of the ore.
