tony and frank, page-5

Frank Timis secures backdoor listing.

Sarah-Jane Tasker From: The Australian February 10, 2010

CONTROVERSIAL mining identity Frank Timis is set to emerge as the chairman of an Australian-listed company after his efforts to float his oil and gas plans in London were halted by the local exchange. Mr Timis's good friend Tony Sage has done a $500 million deal -- through his company Global Iron -- to allow the mining entrepreneur to do a backdoor listing of his company African Petroleum.

It was reported in The Times in London late last year that the London Stock Exchange put the brakes on Mr Timis's plans to float African Petroleum on the Alternative Investment Market, or AIM. It was reported that its decision was based on his role at Regal Petroleum, an oil firm whose share price collapsed in 2005 after it emerged that its giant oilfields were unviable. AIM fined Regal pound stg. 600,000 for deliberately misleading investors. Mr Timis resigned from Regal in 2005 but he is still the chairman of African Minerals, the largest mining company on AIM.

Global announced yesterday that it would acquire Mr Timis's African Petroleum, an oil exploration company focused on West Africa, in a "company transforming" deal.
Executive chairman Tony Sage said Mr Timis was well connected and would attract quality investors to the company. "Frank was looking for a home for it (African Petroleum) and we made a bid for it," Mr Sage said.

It will be the first Australian-listed company Mr Timis chairs but the 45-year-old is also involved in another deal with his private company Eastern Petroleum and Mr Sage's International Goldfields. Under the Global deal, the junior will seek shareholder approval to change its name to African Petroleum Corporation and it is conditional on Global completing a placement of shares to raise no less than $130 million and up to $230m.

Mr Sage said he was confident the investor appetite was there and that he would "break the $200m barrier". He said: "I would not have made the announcement had I not been confident it would go ahead. "To have entered into an agreement to acquire a company that has such highly prospective oil and gas exploration assets, together with the potential to raise up to $230m to fund the advanced exploration and potential development of these assets, puts the company in an excellent position to potentially deliver significant value to shareholders."