02/07/2011
Article Details
Source: The Age
Article Date: 02/07/2011
Summary
Kinghorn displays a $19.2m fondness for White Energy
Journalist: CHRISTOPHER WEBB
Date: 2 July 2011
Publication: The Age
Page: 14
THE DIRECTORS
JOHN Kinghorn has made one of the biggest individual director’s purchases in a while, doubling his stake in White Energy Company.
He spent $19.2 million and in the process became a substantial shareholder with 6.3 per cent of the coal technology and miner.
White — the licensee of a process that upgrades coal — has seen its scrip shredded from $4.25 last year to around $1.88.
Kinghorn, a non-executive director, has acquired two parcels of shares; he bought 10 million shares at $2.50 apiece last August and on Thursday he bought 10 million shares at $1.92 a share.
In May, he sold about $44 million of RHG scrip.
Thanks to his buying, directors doing some buying well and truly outspent sellers, with the scorecard reading $22.8 million to $6 million.
Elsewhere, it looked as if the planets have once again aligned for Peter Bond, the managing director of Linc Energy, another company that has various energy technologies.
Four months ago, Bond spent more than $3 million buying Linc shares and options.
That buying was booked at $2.63 a share, and he explained at the time that it was rare that all the planets aligned to let him buy Linc stock as often as he’d like. He said that as there was so much potential and upside to come, he saw the shares as a standout investment.
The shares hit $3.28 in May but have since weakened. Bond has now stepped back into the market, spending about $1 million in recent days.
Two other veteran resources men were also buyers.
John Joseph Byrne, the executive chairman of Wasabi Energy, increased his stake by 1 million shares bought at 3.1 cents a share.
Wasabi — which uses waste heat from industrial processes to produce electricity — is valued by the market at about $72 million, excluding options.
Meanwhile, there was buying by Robert Annells over at Lakes Oil, a Gippsland explorer that enjoys the services of Peter Begg Lawrence, James Syme and Barney Berold on the board.
Annells, the executive chairman, spent $60,000 on Lakes scrip and for that sort of money he got 15 million shares, at 0.4¢ each.
Fortescue Metals’ executive director Russell Scrimshaw peeled off a modicum of stock, collecting $3 million. He sold at $6.04 each; the scrip closed the week at $6.39.