Article from BRW July 2013...Seems to have a great deal of...

Article from BRW July 2013...Seems to have a great deal of confidence in MEL?



Paul Fudge, one of the true mystery men of the BRW Rich 200, has emerged after almost four years out of the spotlight to buy a stake in mining services group AJ Lucas.
Fudge, valued at $685 million on this year’s BRW Rich 200, was the underwriter on a $149 million capital raising undertaken by AJ Lucas last month.
According to an ASX filing released on Thursday, his private company Belbay Investments now owns a 9.9 per cent stake in AJ Lucas, worth about $32 million.

• Read Paul Fudge’s 2013 BRW Rich 200 profile

Fudge shot to prominence in 2009 when Origin Energy paid $660 million to buy a coal seam gas tenement in Queensland’s Surat Basin from Fudge’s mining group Pangaea Resources. Three years earlier, Origin had purchased a separate tenement for about $70 million.
Fudge’s path to CSG guru was an unusual one. He worked as a successful importer of high quality textiles before noting the rise of the CSG industry in the United States.
He began pegging CSG tenements in Queensland, and later New South Wales, but it would be more than a decade before Origin made him ultra wealthy.
In addition to his interests in the resources sector, he owns an impressive portfolio and a racing outfit called Waratah Thoroughbreds, which has spent up big at overseas bloodstock sales.
However, Fudge keeps an extremely low profile in the Australian business community.
Fudge’s investment in AJ Lucas comes as the company recapitalises its balance sheet and pursues the development of shale gas projects in Europe.
While share prices in the mining services sector have been hit hard in the last 12 months, AJ Lucas shares have risen from 90c to $1.20 in the last 12 months.