Just a few comments into this latest top 20 which I thought...

Just a few comments into this latest top 20 which I thought shareholders should be aware of. Generally I don’t contribute much to the thread anymore, however after noticing Avatar Equities is now on the top 20, it has raised a reasonable concern which I believe ALL Central Petroleum shareholders need to be made aware of.

All of this information is available publicly, but as per the announcement our new no1 holder, is Avatar Equities run by a Mr Tom Fontaine. Now Tom Fontaine as we know (and not surprisingly) sits on the Advisory Board to none other than Advent Energy, a company which CTP shareholders are well aware of. Given the shear size of the holding Mr Fontaine now has, and the direct relationship he has with Advent, it’s safe to assume that the 6.25m parcel Advent recently sold went directly to his hands.

In addition to the 6.25m transfer, some of you would remember a further 1.262m shares went through a few days later which imo was advent transferring the balance of their parcel to Mr Fontaine (although from the last Top 20 Advent only held a further 1.25m). That said, based on 6.25m and 1.25m transfer, adding those figures up we get approximately 7,500,000 shares which Advent has transferred to Tom. To further this, it’s clearly evident that to get to 10,606,514, Mr Fontaine has still been acquiring on market and relatively aggressively given centrals overall low liquidity.

Now what holders need to keep in mind is that Advent still retain their rights and I have no doubts that they will be taking up their entitlement. These rights = 7,500,000 + 3,250,000 CTPOB to Advent, and MEC (Advent associate) also hold a further 3,447,661 CTPOA.

If you add up Mr Fontaine’s, Advent and MEC, assuming execution of CTPOA, CTPOB etc, you end up with 24,804,175 shares – which at present would be around 10% of issued capital. By far Central Petroleum’s largest holder.

Understanding that the rights issue will dilute this at full subscription back down to approx 5% I could imagine that this dilution is something that Advent Directors, namely David Breeze will be trying their hardest to prevent by trying to convince CTP shareholders to force the board to undertake certain activities to suit their own needs. This is something to watch out for.

Put simply given the method these two parties have gone about their transfers, and having seen this kind of activity in the market on several occasions with other stocks, IMHO it seems that Advent and/or Tom are attempting a full or substantial play for CTP in some form or another, and this is by far the most serious concern CTP shareholders face to their long term wealth potential as an investor. There are several reasons why they are a threat and I’m sure many educated investors here who understand CTP’s goal, would understand the risk other parties pose to delivering real value from this package. These risks include being fundamental,strategy/execution, and financial so will not go into too much detail in these areas.

I will however, further the corporate/board risk which having these parties involved poses. If shareholders were to do some research on the net, they would quite easily find information in regards Tom Fontaine. In addition to sitting on the advisory panel to Advent, he was also recently involved in the BG takeover of PES (a company which he set up) with his 5% shareholding voting in full favour of the sale and, he was once a director of Bounty Oil and gas. Before many of you blow his trumpet;

In regards to Bounty Oil and Gas, as per delisted.com.au which anyone can go to, in 2007 Tom Fontaine resigned from his position on the basis

“he did not approve of the current management of the company, and cannot reconcile this situation with the current Bounty board of directors”

Interesting that he resigned on this basis. If one were to go through the Bounty announcements 2 years prior to Mr Fontaines own departure, namely the ann on the 1/12/2005 you will see that 3 directors of Bounty ALL resigned at this time, these were Leigth Wale, Kim Gardiner & Laurence Roe.....all respectable men.

Going back a further two weeks to this ann, on the 16/11/2005 another director Didier Murcier resigned (another respected character) and, on the 19/12/2005 the company secretary of Bounty, Rowan Caran had resigned.

So within 2 months, 4 directors and the company secretary resigned from Bounty – all whilst Tom Fontaine was at the helm. So what was amiss?

Backtrack further to the announcement made on the 20/10/2005.

“one of the items of business to be voted on at the forthcoming AGM (to be held on 30 November) is the re-election of Bounty's former Managing Director, Mr Tom Fontaine - the directors of the Company, other than Mr Fontaine, intend to send a letter to all shareholders providing detailed reasons as to why they each oppose the re- election of Mr Fontaine .... the company has previously advised that it is of the view that there are monies owed to the company by a company related to Mr Fontaine. Accordingly the company has filed a general procedure claim in the magistrates court against that company and Mr Fontaine claiming re-imbursement of monies paid in relation to Mr Fontaine’s presence at the Nyuni drill site in Tanzania”

In response to this very serious issue Mr Fontaine decided to send out an Extraordinary General Meeting in advance to shareholders with the intention of removing all directors apart from himself.

“the company has also received correspondence from Mr Fontaine which included a notice purporting to call a General Meeting of shareholders of the Company for 17 November 2005 …. the company recommends shareholders take no action until the matter is resolved …. it has requested that the voluntary suspension of its shares be lifted”

Unfortunately for Bounty shareholders, all these credible men had had enough, resigned and moved onto greener pastures leaving Bounty to continue underperforming ASX listed stock.

The whole situation was highly unethical at board level and had the ability to entirely destruct the company and associated shareholders wealth.

Tom although lucky with PES, has a proven track record of board disruption, corporate sell offs and questionable undertakings which anyone can find information on over the internet if they cared to undertake some real research.... not just reading what is put on the table for all to see. The walkout of reputable board members from Bounty should be enough to raise concerns.

We now have a character of this nature – sitting at the top of the CTP list, hiding behind the Avatar Equities account, dealing closely with Advent/MEC who we are well aware have serious issues with CTP given they lost the tender package and, he is still continuing to acquire a significant piece of our company.

Given the above circumstances and others which have been apparent for years (some in relation to white sands petroleum which old CTP holders will be aware of) I personally do NOT trust having Tom Fontaine, nor Advent associated with Central Petroleum.

Both these parties are clearly dangerous to this company’s future and if shareholders would like to see true value delivered from this package with an honest and progressive board, with no risk of secretive and destructive undertakings, then I would suggest that any approaches by Advent or Avatar are kept at distance.

It seems a very prudent move by John to employ takeover prevention strategies which, are clearly in the best interests of the company and its long term strategy. IMO They have done a brilliant job getting where they have today, and that was without interference from other parties.

All IMHO only - but information is true and, shareholders can easily verify this by going through Bounty Oil and Gas announcements asx code (BUY), and other information is available through delisted and general web searches. You would probably be surprised at what you find.