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Clear Communications dumps its Strathfield shares

Rebecca Urban | July 22, 2009
Article from: The Australian

A SWEDISH telco that offloaded a batch of loss-making businesses to Strathfield Group a month before its collapse has exited the struggling retailer, reaping $67.9 million in a series of off-market transactions.

Clear Communications, which acquired a majority stake in Strathfield late last year, has offloaded its entire shareholding to five separate parties, including associates and family members of its Australian-based director, National Telecoms Group founder Tony Hakim.

The company's sudden departure is likely to rile minority investors, who have been unable to trade their own shares since the group's shock collapse in January -- shortly after the Clear Communications' businesses were acquired in return for 70 per cent of Strathfield's shares.

The seven businesses, which were not individually identified in any of the transaction documentation provided to Strathfield's shareholders at the time, were supposed to have generated $23m in combined profits during the 2008 financial year.

Instead, they posted a $1.8m loss. The $115m valuation attributed to the acquisition was later revised down to $40m by the company's administrator, BRI Ferrier.

And while Strathfield has since emerged from administration, it has yet to produce its latest financial results, which is a requirement of its relisting on the Australian Securities Exchange.

The company's chairman, Vaz Hovanessian, a long-time business associate of Mr Hakim's, told The Australian that Clear Communications had divested its Strathfield shares to its own investors.

"I don't really know why. It's their choice," Mr Hovanessian said.

Various notices lodged with the securities exchange yesterday show that Clear Communications ceased to be a substantial shareholder on June 26. Buyers of the stock included the government of Ras al-Khaimah of the United Arab Emirates, which spent close to $7m acquiring 6 per cent of Strathfield's shares.

Companies associated with Mr Hakim's brother, Mick Hakim, and Lilian Hakim, a one-time company secretary at National Telecoms Group, also purchased shares at a cost of $26.4m, as did Clear Communications director Jack Buskiewicz. The shares were swapped at an average price of 3.4c, significantly higher than the company's most recent closing price of 0.6c a share.

Richard Poole, a former director and corporate adviser to Strathfield, declined to comment on Clear Communication's multi-million-dollar exit.

Mr Poole said he hoped to see the company resume trading on the market soon so all investors could realise some value. His own stake, once worth millions, was heavily diluted as a result of the reverse takeover.

Mr Hovanessian, who has also recently purchased Strathfield shares off-market, said he expected to lodge the company's interim accounts in "four or five weeks", after which the company would seek to relist.