Quenron (QPP) is not the first company to do business with Equities First Holdings LLC – step forward IGAS Energy (IGAS) which for reasons I shall explain below may well be the first domino to topple in what is brewing up as a mammoth scandal.
On 16th January 2014 IGAS issued a release “Director share purchase”
IGas, one of the leading producers of onshore hydrocarbons in the UK, has received notification that the Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Austin, has purchased 300,000 ordinary shares in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 135.38p pence each.
To fund the acquisition of shares Andrew Austin has entered into a loan facility, and has transferred up to 7.5 million shares as security. Andrew Austin is required to redeem the shares at maturity when the loan is repaid at the end of the three year term and it is his full intention to do so. Under the terms of the facility the lender is contractually prohibited from short selling or voting the shares during the term of the loan. The loan facility has been arranged by Meridian Equity Partners and the funding provided by Equities First Holdings, a securities-based capital provider for institutional and individual clients.
Following this purchase, Andrew Austin is interested in 10,967,075 Ordinary Shares representing 5.41 per cent of the issued ordinary share capital of the Company. The total issued share capital of the Company comprises 202,633,228 ordinary shares of 10 pence each.
Ends.
As has now been established elsewhere by “transferred” Mr Austin actually means “sold” – that is to say the shares were moved into the hands of Equities First and title passed to the yanks.