MICK Gatto has helped negotiate a peace deal between Perth company Cape Lambert Iron Ore and major shareholders billionaire Roman Abramovich and British-based Mick Shemesian.
On February 28 Gatto and business associate John Khoury, under the banner of company Arbitrations and Mediations, flew to London for a secret meeting at The Mayfair hotel to help with a peace deal between the warring parties.
The meeting at The Mayfair was called by Romanian-born businessman Frank Timis — who has business ties with all the parties, but does not own a stake in Cape Lambert — to try to avoid a messy legal battle in the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
Former Shemesian business partner Brett Matich had obtained an injunction from the Supreme Court to stop his old mate selling or voting his Cape Lambert shares.
Gatto confirmed Arbitrations and Mediations had helped broker the peace deal. "Arbitrations and Mediations has gone global, you might say," Gatto said. "If there is a problem that needs sorting out, it doesn't matter where it is. If you fly us there, we'll fix it."
Gatto said the "London job" was one of the "legitimate corporate business deals" that Arbitrations and Mediations was involved in.
Cape Lambert is controlled by executive chairman Tony Sage, owner of the Perth Glory A-League soccer club.
Russia's Evraz, controlled by oil and gas billionaire Roman Abramovich, owns about 16 per cent of the company. According to Forbes magazine, Abramovich is the 51st richest person in the world with a $US8.5 billion fortune. He also owns Chelsea Football Club in England. Shemesian's Hong Kong-based Power United owns a 10.5 per cent stake in Cape Lambert.
The saga began when Cape Lambert sold its namesake iron ore project to China Metallurgical for $400 million at the peak of the resources boom.
In September 2008 Power United called a meeting of shareholders to try to have Sage and directors loyal to him removed from Cape Lambert's board. Power United nominated Melbourne day trader Leo "The Gun" Khouri, who has some well-established links with the Underbelly crowd.
Perth lawyer Martin Bennett, who represented Khouri and 58 investors as part of a class action to recoup funds lost in Opes Prime's collapse, was also on the Shemesian ticket. The board challenge was unsuccessful.
In December a Cyprus-based company called Unicredit Aton International filed a substantial-shareholder notice declaring it owned 36.8 million shares, or 7.28 per cent, of Cape Lambert.
That notice was filed after Cape Lambert hired Thomson Reuters to "flush out" who was behind a series of share purchases from Cyprus. The country's banks are known as "parking stations" for Russian money, and Cape Lambert suspected Evraz was behind the share purchases.
Full Disclosure has been told the meeting at The Mayfair was attended by Gatto, John Khoury, Leo Khouri, Shemesian and a representative of Abramovich. It was effectively "chaired" by Timis.
Spokesman for Timis Alan Frame confirmed his client had "some involvement" in the Cape Lambert negotiations.
Sage confirmed he was in London at the time of the meeting, but said he was there on "separate business" and did not attend the gathering.
At that meeting a deal was brokered for Shemesian to sell his shares to a "neutral" third party that had no ties with either Sage or Abramovich. Matich agreed to drop his lawsuit against Shemesian.
When Full Disclosure put the claims to John Khoury, he replied: "Your mail's pretty good."
Asked which party he and Gatto represented in London, he replied: "Cape Lambert's."
On Monday 50 million Cape Lambert shares worth $17.5 million changed hands, signalling the end of Shemesian's involvement with the company. Cape Lambert told the market it "observed" the sale of 50 million shares, and it had been advised "the shares were bought by a number of British institutions".
No mention at all that the company may have been involved in brokering the deal, or Underbelly types had flown to London to fix the problem.
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