SINCE the collapse of Opes Prime, there has been plenty of action in the small-cap mining sector.
Many of the names will be familiar to Full Disclosure readers.
Ford muscle-car enthusiast Leo "The Gun" Khouri has slowly been restoring the positions he held in several companies before the fall of Opes Prime.
Back in April, the Takeovers Panel received an application from Khouri's Gun Capital Management and family super fund Bejjal, in conjunction with a company called Exchange Minerals Pty Ltd, to try and prevent ANZ Nominees from selling its stakes in shale oil explorer Boss Energy, as well as listed biotech BioProspect.
The three applicants submitted that they were the beneficial owners of the Opes Prime-held shares, but the application ultimately failed.
With ANZ Nominees disposing of the Opes shares, Khouri has been buying back into both companies over the past month.
The latest purchase of 10 million BioProspect shares by Gun Capital Management took his stake to 14.37% of the company.
Khouri's superannuation company Bejjal has also bought back 5 million shares of Boss Energy, or about 12.5% of the company, at an average price of 7¢ a share.
Good to see the Melbourne day trader filling out his substantial shareholder notices, too.
Khouri is also a consultant to Range Resources, run by business associate Peter Landau.
Full Disclosure hears that Khouri helped finance the company's expansion into oil exploration in Puntland, Somalia, and worked as an adviser. He even pops up in a few Range Resources videos, where management can be seen handing out giant-sized cheques, like the ones at golf tournaments, to local Puntland officials.
At least times have picked up for Khouri in the wake of Opes Prime.
Gun Capital Management is sponsoring the 13th Falcon GT Nationals in Adelaide next year, which means some of his coveted GT Falcon collection will be on show.
While Khouri's moves remain of interest and are quite transparent in the wake of Opes, there is some mystery about the identity of two companies called Exchange Minerals and their involvement with some Opes Prime victims.
One is Exchange Minerals Pty Ltd, which is the name of the company that applied to the Takeovers Panel along with Khouri to stop the sale of the Boss Energy and BioProspect shares. That Exchange Minerals Pty Ltd is registered to Margaret Street, Sydney, and has Gary Bruce Holbrook as its sole director and shareholder.
But the company actually listed as the 10th biggest option holder in Boss Energy has a slightly different name - it is Exchange Minerals Limited, which is based in Dubai.
That Exchange Minerals is linked to former Perth mining figure Mick Shemesian, who now resides in the United Arab Emirates and London and conducts deals with many small-cap Australian miners.
Shemesian - under the alternate spelling "Michael Shamazian" - is a director of Mining and Petroleum Projects Limited, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.
Mining Petroleum Projects has its head office in Ashgabad, Turkmenistan, and its website states that "Exchange Minerals Limited of Dubai" is an "associated unlisted company".
"Associated listed companies" of MPM are Boss, Range Resources, Artemis Resources, Contact Resources and Cape Lambert. Continued…
