30/07/2008 Gladstone Pacific Nickel’s chairman, Clive Palmer, has resigned to lead a £90 million paper bid for the Queensland-based company.
Palmer, who owns nearly 14 per cent of AIM-quoted Gladstone, is making the bid through Resource Development International (RDI), a company he has set up to acquire ‘substantial’ iron ore, nickel, exploration and energy interests. He says he intends to float RDI for £2.5 billion later this year and list it in Hong Kong and/or Australia.
Palmer says RDI will offer shares for Gladstone at a value equivalent to 220p per Gladstone share, the number of shares to be based on RDI’s float price. Another Gladstone director, Geoffrey Smith, has also resigned to avoid conflicts of interest, since he also works for another Palmer company.
Floated in 2005 at 120p, Gladstone shares hit 225p in April last year, but fell to 57.5p by earlier this month. They have risen 24.5p today to 85p and could still prove a bargain, but only as long as RDI’s bid proposal crystallises and RDI’s float is successful.
ARH Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
