" PADBURY Mining has admitted it never secured all of the money it needed for its botched $6.5 billion plan to revive the Oakajee port and rail project — despite telling investors last month it had raised 100 per cent of the funding from equity investors.
In a series of astonishing admissions, the Perth junior explorer also revealed its potential company-making announcement on April 11 was never reviewed by lawyers before it was sent to the Australian Securities Exchange.
Padbury told the ASX it would review its corporate governance policies and disclosure and listing rule compliance. Shares in Padbury were reinstated on the ASX yesterday after three weeks of intense scrutiny following its funding deal with colourful Sydney dealmaker Roland Frank Bleyer.
Investors punished the stock, driving it down 85 per cent to 0.5c.
Padbury terminated the Oakajee deal this week after being unable to provide evidence that Mr Bleyer’s web of companies ever had the capacity to provide the funding.
The company is now the subject of an investigation by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission for allegedly misleading the market, while some Padbury investors are calling for a class-action lawsuit against the company.
In response to a string of queries from the ASX, Padbury admitted yesterday it should have revealed to investors on April 11 that it was required to procure a bank to issue a demand guarantee in relation to 20 per cent of the $6.5bn funding package to build Oakajee.
It said it had agreed to pay Mr Bleyer’s companies the demand guarantee — worth $94 million — within just 40 days of the deal.
“At the date of the (announcement) Padbury did not have the financial capacity to procure the issue of the demand guarantees, but considered there were reasonable prospects of it being able to negotiate appropriate funding arrangements to procure the issue of the demand guarantees,” it said.
Padbury’s original announcement said 100 per cent of the funding was “secured” and work on the Oakajee project would begin as soon as possible.
Yesterday, Padbury declined to answer an ASX question about whether its directors had approved the April 11 announcement in accordance with the company’s corporate governance rules.
“A response to your question might tend to deny the directors the statutory protections with respect to self-incrimination that would be available in the context of an ASIC investigation,” it said.
The Padbury announcement last month sparked scrutiny of Mr Bleyer’s past business dealings amid revelations of a string of failed business deals as well as civil and criminal cases brought against him in the US.
Mr Bleyer told The Australian last week that he would get the money from a bank in the Cayman Islands.
West Australian Premier Colin Barnett said this week he had spent “about 30 seconds” considering Padbury’s plan to revive the long-stalled Oakajee project before dismissing it as unrealistic.
Padbury told the ASX yesterday it had been negotiating with Mr Bleyer’s companies, Superkite and Alliance Super Holdings, for 18 months and had sought information on how they would fund the Oakajee project.
It said ASH had represented to Padbury that it had access to sufficient capital to fund its share of the costs.
The Oakajee infrastructure would service the mines of the Mid-West and open up a new iron ore export province for Australia. Japanese corporate giant Mitsubishi last year abandoned its plan to build the Oakajee port and rail network"
