WTH is KBC up to

There have been a few posts on VEN and other MEL threads however I though KBC deserved their own thread since things are likely to heat up in the coming weeks.

As MEL have said previously they have legal advice that KBC is in default of their terms not MEL and that MEL are in advanced discussions to secure alternative funding. Looks like both these statements will be tested by KBC.

It will be interesting to see if KBC actually just want their money back or if they are trying to gain control over MEL through a questionable default notice.

The whole issue was in the Australian Newspaper on Saturday. Here is a transcript.

Corporate raider Nicholas Bolton buying up micro gas explorer

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you,” is perhaps the perfect famous phrase that could apply to the board of micro-cap gas explorer Vintage Energy which has just landed within the cross hairs of corporate raider Nicholas Bolton.Vintage Energy, chaired by former Beach Energy boss Reg Nelson, has some highly promising gas projects in South Australia’s Cooper Basin that are getting many in the investment community excited.

And while it has had some good fortune in securing and exploiting these finds, its choice of joint venture partner has not been as fortuitous.A 25 per cent minority partner in the projects is ASX-listed Metgasco, a struggling explorer that is too tiny to call micro and whose shares are trading under 1c to give it a market capitalisation of around $8.5m.

Not so long ago Bolton’s Keybridge Capital, which recently won a massive and very lucrative campaign against the Magellan Global Fund, lent some money to Metgasco and was also a major shareholder. Keybridge and fund manager Michael Glennon of Glennon Small Companies fund were co-lenders to Metgasco, and in the words of one energy sector veteran “Metgasco is screwed and might never pay that loan back”.Keybridge, which counts as a director property and tech entrepreneur Antony Catalano, is owed around $1.5m and anyone who knows Bolton knows he doesn’t like to lose on a deal.

And so, always thinking a few steps ahead, Keybridge started buying up shares in Vintage Energy and this week popped up as a 5.2 per cent shareholder. It seems the plan is to squeeze Vintage Energy to in turn squeeze its Cooper Basin junior partner Metgasco to pay back Bolton’s loan. Or work out some payment plan. It is believed Bolton sees Vintage as a much safer and more rewarding way to invest in the energy sector as opposed to losing money on cash-hungry Metgasco which is just the passive partner and junior in the two key gas fields operated by Vintage Energy.For now Vintage Energy and its board are spectators in this looming war between Bolton and Metgasco. But as that famous quote illustrated, sometimes war will come to your front door even if you don’t want it to. Hopefully Vintage Energy won’t meet the same gruesome end that the person who coined that phrase did. Has anyone ever seen Bolton carrying an ice axe?