In the SMH againGot the vote date wrong (I hope)Compass...

In the SMH again

Got the vote date wrong (I hope)

Compass Resources shareholders will vote today on whether to grant their chairman, Gordon Toll, and a US investment fund a 95 per cent stake in the explorer, in return for wiping out about $70 million of debt.

Under the deed of company arrangement being proposed at today's meeting, Toll will be granted 422,101,919 shares - a 15 per cent stake - priced at 2.5 each.

YA Global, which had some convertible notes in the company which spent about $250 million building an oxide plant, will get an 80 per cent stake.

This is dramatically different to the proposal Compass shareholders were about to vote on the day Compass was tipped into voluntary administration in January last year. Then, Toll's private company was set to get 90.5 million shares priced at 42 each to extinguish the $US25 million he was owed by Compass, and YA Global was to get a 35 per cent stake.

But it seems some shareholders in the company once valued at $770 million are still refusing to budge. Some have raised concerns about another of YA Global's deals across the Pacific.

Comparisons have already been drawn with YA Global's failed attempts to push into liquidation the US biotech Cobalis, in which it had some convertible notes.

Cobalis recently won its bid in a US bankruptcy court over YA Global's proposal that it claimed would ''wipe out the common stock of Cobalis and its shareholders, pay creditors 4 to 15 on the dollar, and allow 90 per cent of revenues from the worldwide distribution of [the drug] PreHistin to be accrued to a Canadian business entity alleged to have been recently purchased by YAGI and managed by a current YAGI principal''.

Now YA Global's involvement in another deal has been highlighted. A shareholder in the US technology firm NeoMedia recently launched legal action against YA Global for allegedly engaging in a ''manipulative scheme'' over an original $10 million convertible note facility provided in 2002. It is claimed YA Global failed to make proper disclosures and that it engaged in ''short-swing trading'' of the stock before converting its debt into shares.

''YA Global has fared quite well from its 'investment' in NeoMedia, having purchased over $50 million in NeoMedia securities and made untold millions in profits,'' said the investor, William Klawoon, in a filing to a New Jersey court last month.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/clough-biding-time-with-targeted-twinza-20100614-ya81.html