vote fails, page-39

Nicholas Bolton skips BrisConnections wind-up vote after striking 'deal'

Sean Parnell, Queensland political reporter | April 14, 2009

Article from: The Australian

RENEGADE unitholder Nicholas Bolton has abandoned his fellow investors in BrisConnections and aborted his bid to wind up the trusts that underpin Queensland's troubled Airport Link project.

At an extraordinary general meeting of unitholders in BrisConnections, which is managing the Bligh government's $4.5 billion public-private partnership, a resolution to wind up the trusts failed to secure 75 per cent of votes to wind up the company's trusts.

Despite the at-times heated debate, where BrisConnections chairman Trevor Rowe attracted the most criticism due to his related role as chair of the government-owned Queensland Investment Corporation, the move attracted only 35.66 per cent support.

To the shock of retail unitholders desperate to avoid paying future instalments, Mr Lowe later revealed Mr Bolton, whose company Australian Style Investments has a 18.4 per cent stake in BrisConnections, had voted against his own resolution.

Mr Bolton - a 27-year-old Melbourne IT business owner who has become the company's largest unitholder - was not present at the meeting.

His proxy-holder subsequently confirmed ASI had done a "deal" with Thiess John Holland that would be detailed to the Australian Stock Exchange today.

Other resolutions - which Mr Bolton is also voting against, despite putting them on the agenda - are still being debated, but the meeting has descended into farce.

Mr Rowe has so far resisted calls for the voting to be postponed to allow unitholders to obtain advice on ASI's change in voting intention - which he knew about on Saturday - or for stakeholders to negotiate a deal to relieve small-time investors of a requirement to pay two further instalments on their units.

Mr Rowe said concerned unitholders should question Mr Bolton and ASI.