nick curtis' lynas corp stake keeps shrinking

Nick Curtis is losing interest in rare-metals miner Lynas Corp, although it is not of his own volition. Curtis reported to the ASX on Thursday that he handed 10 million shares to Credit Suisse to settle a $4.319 million loan facility set up in April last year.

The facility is not a margin loan and therefore there are no margin calls,'' Curtis reported at the time.

So presumably it is not to blame for his sale of 2.85 million Lynas shares just before Christmas.

Since December, his stake in the company has shrunk from 16 million shares to about 3 million as of this week.

CBD suspects other funds may have changed hands to settle the facility given the shares were worth a tad under $2 million when Credit Suisse took hold of them.

It is not the only potential call on the family purse strings.

There is also the matter of the legal bills being run up by his son, ''celebrity investment banker'' Oliver Curtis - hubby to publicity queen Roxy Jacenko - who is fighting insider trading charges in the Supreme Court.

Just as well Nick's Queen Street, Woollahra home is still on the market.

He also has 18.5 million options over Lynas shares, compliments of the years he spent as its CEO.

The stock's plunge since its half-year results announcement a few weeks back finally bottomed after Lynas reported that production at its controversial Malaysian processing facility remains on track.

I wish to assure shareholders that while LAMP has been slower to ramp up than we would have liked, recent production is beginning to demonstrate sustainable momentum,'' said Curtis, who also had to contend with a speeding ticket issued by the ASX on Wednesday when the stock bottomed at 17.5¢.


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