Mark Hawthorne December 11, 2008 Page 1 of 2 Single page view
THERE has been another twist in the tale of Cape Lambert Iron Ore, with a Cyprus-based company called Unicredit Aton International filing a substantial-shareholder notice declaring it owns 36.8 million shares, or 7.28 per cent, of the cashed-up iron ore company.
The revelation only came about after the board of Cape Lambert, which held some suspicions about who controlled large parcels of shares, hired Thomson Reuters to perform an investigation of the company's share register.
"We wanted to flush out who owned some significant parcels of shares, and discover who actually controlled them," said Cape Lambert spokesman David Tasker.
"The board hired the services of Thomson Reuters to examine some of the overseas holdings.
"This announcement to the ASX has come about as a result of that investigation."
The report filed to the Cape Lambert board points out that Cyprus is a well known "parking station" for Russian money.
Indeed, an estimated quarter of Russian deals in overseas countries go through the Cyprus banking system.
Cape Lambert's biggest shareholder is Russia's Evraz, controlled by oil and gas billionaire Roman Abramovich. It owns almost 16 per cent of Cape Lambert, but would need Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approval to go beyond 19.9 per cent — the limit at which it must launch a takeover bid.
The sneaking suspicion at Cape Lambert is that interests involved with Evraz may also control the Cyprus shareholding — putting Evraz in control of 23.3 per cent of Cape Lambert.
If substantiated, that would not only put Russian interests in breach of FIRB regulations, but also mean they are obliged to make a takeover bid, or sell-down the holding.
"We do not, at this stage, know who controls the shares in Cyprus," said Tasker. "But the board is interested in finding out."
Cape Lambert has about $320 million in cash after selling its namesake West Australian iron ore project to China Metallurgical for $400 million.
Within hours of the second-last $80 million instalment hitting Cape Lambert's bank account in September, Dubai-based mining investor Mick Shemessian launched a daring raid on the company.
That has since hit legal woes, with one of Shemessian's former business associates, Brett Matich, obtaining an injunction from the Supreme Court of WA to stop Shemessian selling or voting his stock. That 10.5 per cent stake is held by Shemessian's Hong Kong-based company Power United.
CFE Price at posting:
18.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)