International Petroleum's largest shareholder is in the news again, so to start the first thread on IPO I am posting this article from the Gaurdian UK.
Sound Oil's chairman sounds quite cross this morning as he reveals the collapse of a deal the company had been planning with Frank Timis, best known for his involvement with Regal Petroleum.
Sound, whose main business is in Indonesia, had been in talks to buy a private company with assets offshore West Africa, majority owned by a Timis trust. The deal was deemed a reverse takeover and Sound's shares were suspended in October when the news broke.
A report last week that Timis was planning to list his African Petroleum business - which includes the assets due to be reversed into Sound - on Aim before the end of the year should have been a clue that things might not go to plan. And sure enough, today Sound said that although the talks reached "an advanced stage" they had now been terminated. Sound's chairman Gerry Orbell snapped:
It is unfortunate that this reverse transaction has collapsed as we committed significant time and effort to reaching a successful conclusion.
You can see his point. Sound's shares came back from suspension after the announcement of the deal's collapse and immediately plunged by 45%, down 1.675p to 2p. Sentiment has not been helped by another bit of news in today's statement from Sound that a partner, Elnusa Bangkanai Exploration, wants to end the company's farm in agreement at Bangkanai due to delays in completing the work there.
Timis was the founder of Regal, which was fined a record £600,000 last month after a critical report covering the two years when he was in charge. Regal was accused of issuing a number of misleading announcements. Posted by Nick Fletcher Friday 4 December 2009 11.21 GMT guardian.co.uk
IPO Price at posting:
33.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
