A must read,Oh what a tangled web we weave ...Email Print Normal...

A must read,

Oh what a tangled web we weave ...
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AdvertisementMark Hawthorne
April 3, 2008

THE more digging one does into the carcass of Opes Prime, the messier it all gets.

A total of 22 predominantly small-cap companies went into trading halts as a direct result of the collapse of the broking firm.

Hundreds of families are facing a leaner winter as ANZ Bank, Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Kleinwort put their shareholdings on the block on the cheap.

Any of those companies has a tale to tell, but three are of particular interest to Full Disclosure — if only because the same names keep reappearing.

One is Melbourne-based Solagran, purveyors of a range of modern-day miracle cure-alls.

These include Ropren, which Solagran says could be effective in fixing everything from alcoholism, liver disease and high cholesterol to Parkinson's disease.

Solagran even has a treatment for stomach ulcers using pine needles — the company does its drug testing in Russia, where some suggest the regulatory regime is a little more flexible than in Australia or Germany, where it is also listed.

Solagran went into a trading halt on March 31, saying the company planned to make

"an announcement on the distribution and marketing of Solagran in Russia".

It duly did, yesterday, with a lengthy treatise. Not that many noticed — of more interest was the note issued after it, saying that Solagran would be out in another trading halt until Friday.

It seems a private company called Solamind — it effectively controls Solagran and holds shares owned by executive chairman and principal founder Vagif Soultanov — was doing its business with Opes Prime, complete with a margin loan account.

As a result, ANZ may now own so much of the company's stock that Solagran suggests ANZ Bank will have to make a formal takeover offer for the company under the Takeover Provisions of the Corporations Act — they will own morethan 19.9%.

There's a nice mess for the ASX to deal with.

Also, Dr Soultanov owns only 8% of the stock.

So who owns the rest?

Another name associated with Solagran is one that has featured in Full Disclosure this week — GT Ford-driving internet day trader Leo Khouri, the man mounting the class action against ANZ to try to keep $50 million of shares he and his business associates once owned.

Khouri, known as "the Gun" in day-trading circles, and some of his associates are very long in Solagran — about $30 million, at the last closing price, we hear — and are not happy. Lucky for them that Solagran has been in a lengthy trading halt and ANZ can't yet dump the stock.

Another company taking a close look at Opes is Range Resources, a Perth-based oil and mineral explorer that is drilling for oil in Somalia.

One Peter Landau is executive director and company secretary.

Landau has put out a corporate update to the market stating no directors had margin loan accounts with Opes, but some large investors did.

Those investors include, you guessed it, GT Ford-driving day trader Leo Khouri — who, we reliably hear, spent some time in March visiting Somalia before heading over to Perth.

Landau, formerly of Melbourne, is also a directorof listed small-cap biotech BioProspect.

For his services there, Landau was rewarded with the issue of 10 million shares in BioProspect this month.

That was for his "consulting services" after BioProspect signed with, wait for it, Solagran.

The coincidences just keep mounting up.

Meanwhile, Khouri and his cohorts have finally retained the services of some briefs who are willing to take on their case.

After paperwork at Clayton Utz was passed from Perth to the Sydney head office on Monday, senior partners decided they could live without the Opes Prime class action.

"We would like to make it clear the decision has been made that Clayton Utz will not be proceeding with the action," said a spokeswoman for the company who contacted Full Disclosure.

"We believe the client is seeking to engage the services of another solicitor." Arnold Bloch Leibler was rumoured to be the next port of call for Khouri and his group, but to no avail. By late morning the paperwork had lobbed with Bourke Street lawyers

Logie-Smith Lanyon, who agreed to take on the class action.

Khouri has confirmed that he is up the creek for $12 million personally. But the day trader, who also invests money for other people, said a group of friends and business associates had invested $50 million through Opes.

What has irked Khouri is that he didn't receive a margin call on any of his investments and, like so many other Opes clients, operated under the belief that he retained ownership of his shares.

Khouri and his private company, Gun Capital Management, will be represented by solicitor Vann Fisher, of Wisewolds.

"I am representing Mr Khouri's interests in the matter, Logie-Smith Lanyon will be doing the class action," confirmed Fisher.

"At this stage my client has nothing further to add, but we will be monitoring what happens with other cases before the courts very closely in coming weeks."

Watch the birdieWITH so much happening with Opes Prime, it has been easy to miss the rich wealth of news coming from the rest of the corporate world this week.
Highlights for Full Disclosure's spies have included watching Virgin boss Richard Branson prance in a loincloth for the launch of V Australia's Sydney-Los Angeles route, and the repeated spottings of Fairfax Media chairman Ron Walker and 3AW's Neil Mitchell dining around town.

The pair had lunch on Tuesday, and were seen dining together at Crown Casino's plush new Bistro Guillaume on Wednesday. That's certain to fuel the rumour mill.

But nothing can top the latest entry for "worst press release of the year", which, it is sad to report, promotes the digital arm of Fairfax.

Sydney's Red Agency has sent out real birdcages with cardboard cut-out canaries inside, which somehow is meant to promote Fairfax Digital's collaboration in the launch of an "online digital youth initiative". The included press release tells us it will "ruffle some feathers".

Except everyone at Red Agency missed the symbolism of the canary in a cage — it' a harbinger of doom.

Miners kept them to sense levels of toxic gas in coalmines. When the birds died, the miners fled. Much like Fairfax investors of late.