Well known fraudster, tax cheat and perjurer Kerry Stokes is at it again in an attempt to swindle millions of dollars from shareholders of Nexus Energy. In fact Mr Stokes is trying to steal the whole company via court proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia and has told the court he wants to give the shareholders nothing. Mr Stokes has no shame when it comes to stealing other people’s money and it is time he was put in his place.

Small retail shareholders of Nexus Energy, which is a Melbourne based oil and gas exploration and production company, have set up a website called Nexus Battle Site (Click here) to fight back and try to at least get something for their shares.

Seven Group Holdings, which owns Channel 7, was until recent times mainly focused on Media but is very quickly turning into a mining company with some media assets. Its current Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer since 1 July 2013 is Don Voelte who was previously CEO of Woodside Petroleum Limited. Prior to that Mr Voelte held numerous senior roles in the oil and gas sector. (Click here to read more)

(Click anywhere on the above picture to make it larger)

Another mining man to pop up on the Kerry Stokes gravy train is none other than former federal resources minister Martin Ferguson who is now Seven’s head of resources. Obviously Kerry is returning a favour to Martin Ferguson as it’s not that long ago that the federal Labor Party, Kerry Stokes and Channel 7 worked together for possibly the biggest tax fraud this country has ever seen regarding TV licence fees. (Click here to read more) I’m still investigating the tax fraud and will have more on it the future as there is now a senate inquiry into tax dodging companies.

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Background to the Nexus Energy sting

There is an old routine where management will run a company into the ground then buy it dirt cheap, way below its true value. This is the routine that seems to have happened at Nexus Energy with Kerry Stokes’ Seven Group Holdings (SGH) running Nexus into the ground and ultimately administration. One estimate of a key asset of Nexus is that it is worth up to $780 million which alone would value the shares at 59 cents per share. That is a lot more than the 2 cents originally offered by Stokes and obviously more than what he is offering shareholders now which is nothing.

“The well, known as Auriga, is part of the Crux gasfield lease in the Browse Basin and was labelled “high-impact”, “high-probability” and “low-risk” by Nexus managing director Lucio Della Martina last year.” (Click here to read more)

Financial Control

Stokes gained financial control when SGH bought a large part of Nexus Energy’s multimillion dollar debt. So then Nexus owed SGH millions and if it went into administration (which it subsequently did) then SGH was in a prime position to buy its assets, which it is trying to do.

Conflict of Interest

What seems to have allowed Stokes to do this is the fact that the Chairman of Nexus Energy Don Voelte was being paid millions as CEO of Stokes’ company SGH. That was a clear and major conflict of interest and it is amazing that Mr Voelte has not been disbarred as a director.

Some of the detail

Wind the clock back to the beginning of the year. SGH CEO Don Voelte is being paid millions by Stokes and probably on a share bonus scheme of some sort to buy Seven Group Holdings shares cheap. He is also Chairman of Nexus Energy and knows if he can get SGH to buy Nexus Energy cheaply he will end up millions of dollars richer via his SGH shares. In fact all directors of SGH including Kerry Stokes know this.

• SGH who already owned shares in Nexus Energy started to buy Nexus Energy’s debt from the banks and financial institutions. This way SGH in effect control Nexus Energy especially if Nexus Energy goes into administration.
• 31 March 2014 – Seven Group Holdings (SGH) proposed a merger of Nexus (nxs) into SGH with an offer to NXS shareholder of 2 cents a share.
• June 2014 “Shareholders in Nexus in June voted down a takeover proposal from Seven Group that would have given them 2¢ per share, with the result that the energy player was placed in administration. Seven, which sees Nexus as an important part of its new energy business and has acquired Nexus’s senior debt, then sealed a deal for the takeover with administrators McGrath Nicol under which Nexus shareholders get nothing for their shares.” (Click here to read more)
• The matter is now in court with numerous people lining up against Stokes and Seven Group Holdings. It is due for further hearings in Sydney on the 27th and 28th November 2014 in the Federal Court of Australia.

It was reported a few days ago:

“In an escalation of the resistance against the purchase of Nexus by Seven, Seven Group managing director and former Nexus chairman Don Voelte is the focus of a shareholder campaign against the takeover, with submissions to Australian Securities Investments Commission outlining serious concerns about Mr Voelte’s dual roles in the lead-up to the takeover bid.” (Click here to read more)

Nexus Energy’s real worth is in the exploration licenses that it owns. It’s website says: “Nexus has an attractive portfolio of offshore production, development and exploration assets including the producing Longtom gas project in the Gippsland Basin, off the south-east coast of Victoria (Nexus 100%), and the Crux development project in the East Browse Basin, off the coast of North West Australia (Nexus 15%).” (Click here to read more)

Hopefully the thieving Kerry Stokes will not get away with ripping everyone off this time but the battle continues. It is due back in court at the end of November.

Declaration: I am having my own battle with Stokes which is back in court next Monday for another directions hearings. Stokes is very much on the run avoiding a hearing. I will do another post on it soon.

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