For West Australian oil & mining hopefuls, you didn’t get a better real estate location than 34 Parliament Place, West Perth Australia.
The building, once owned by the WA Government, is a stone’s throw from Parliament House. It was a cosy and tangled little group that used to do business behind the high security walls at the property.
One company that used to be based there was Range Resources, the small-cap oil and mineral explorer that shone so brightly pre dusters in Puntland (Somalia) and Georgia. Range does have producing acreage in the USA, Trinidad and South/Central America. However many investors now feel that some thing just isn’t right about the company.
The recent Tom Winnifrith articles questioning the value of Ranges’ Guatemala & Trinidad assets is but one small pointer as to why I now officially enter the fray. Having previously supported Landau/Range defending their “roll of the dice in Puntland/Georgia”
The whole Range Resources/Peter Landau history has turned in to one of failure with the usual corporate greed. With Landau trousering millions upon millions of dollars from all his interlinked convoluted business ventures. One has to ask why Landaus’ business dealings are so confusing? What is it’s purpose? “Oh what a tangled web we weave”
Range Resources has been on the confused business radar before, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Opes Prime Group, an Australian securities lending, Venture capital and Stockbroking firm which suffered a dramatic collapse in 2008.
Melbourne day trader and GT Falcon collector Leo Khouri, who lost tens of millions of dollars worth of shares in the collapse of Opes Prime, was a shareholder and consultant to the company.
Range Resources’ executive director at the time they were based at 34 Parliament place was Peter Landau. Landau’s private company, Lacka Consulting, had its offices at 34 Parliament Place West Perth.
The Lacka track record was one of staff becoming the company secretaries/directors of other listed companies that worked out of the building. Former Range Resources company secretary Joanna Kiernan worked for Lacka before she departed the country. Lacka employee Jane Flegg was the joint company secretary of another listed mining explorer based at 34 Parliament Place – Contact Uranium. Flegg is also the joint CS of? Range Resources! As a matter of fact Fleggs’ name appears on many different companies official documents including OKAP ventures.
It’s interesting to note that Flegg was a part-owner of a private company called Thirteen Eleven Pty Ltd, which was registered to? 34 Parliament Place West Perth. Before she left Range Resources, Kiernan was also a part-owner of? Thirteen Eleven Pty Ltd! Thirteen Eleven was one of the top 20 shareholders of another listed company called Continental Capital, with 1.975 million shares, or 1.24%, of the stock in issue.
Sure enough, Continental Capital operated out of? 34 Parliament Place West Perth, and Peter Landau was the? Executive Chairman. By the way Continental Capital used to be called Continental Goldfields which used to be called Aqua Vitel which used to be called Interlok. Continental Capital is now called? Continental Coal. Confused? Peter Landau was the Executive Director. Oh sorry forgot to say that Jane flegg was also the Company Secretary of? Continental Coal. Busy woman is our Jane! Still I expect she gets her remuneration in full. ‘Remuneration’ ah now there’s a word bandied about hither and tither these days. Apparently over at Peter Landau’s Range Resources, remuneration isn’t linked to performance. (Check 2013 company accounts)
Back to Mr Khouri whose private super fund, Bejjal Super, was listed as owning 6.2 million Continental Capital shares in December 2007.
Listed mineral explorer Artemis Resources was another company operating out of? 34 Parliament Place West Perth.
Back in March 31 2008, Continental Capital announced that Contract Uranium became a substantial shareholder in Artemis – you’ll find the signatures of Flegg and Artemis director Barry Woodhouse on the documents filed with the ASX. All three companies operated out of? 34 Parliament Place West Perth.
By the way the company that owned 34 Parliament Place was called Bostock Investments. Our Jane was listed as; Guess what? Company Secretary! Jane Flegg, was also the company secretary of? Contact Uranium, which rented office space in? 34 Parliament Place West Perth. Peter Landau in 2006 was also on the board of? Bostock Investments. The main beneficiary of the sale of 34Parliament Place West Perth was? Leo Khouri. Flegg apparently also has ties with companies linked with John Stratton, who also had an office at? 34 Parliament Place West Perth.
But, even with all that intermingled mess, the chatter around 34 Parliament Place West Perth back then must have focused on British mining millionaire John Stratton, who was the subject of an investigative episode called Four Corners on the Australian ABC network.
Four Corners reported that Stratton had been named as co-conspirator in the murder of former Randgold & Exploration chief executive Brett Kebble in Johannesburg in 2005. Shortly before his death, it emerged Kebble was part of a plot to strip three companies – Randgold, Western Areas and JCI – of shares and that an estimated $400 million had been plundered.
Stratton was a director of R&E and JCI, and was named in a $US1 billion lawsuit against PricewaterhouseCoopers by the new directors of R&E.
R&E alleges that PwC was negligent in its auditing of the company’s books from 2000 until 2003.
Also named in that affidavit is one Hendrik Buitendag, the former financial controller of R&E, who also resides in Perth. The affidavit alleges the directors of JCI, including Kebble, Stratton and Buitendag, “acting in their capacities as directors of JCI and in their personal capacities, devised a scheme, which scheme was intended to wrongfully through theft, deprive Randgold of 2 million Roodepoort Deep Ltd shares.”
Stratton denied the allegations in South Africa, and refused to comment when contacted by Full Disclosure. Of course, lots of companies can share premises and never do business – but that wasn’t the case at 34 Parliament Place West Perth. Back in 2004, before they found their new offices, the three directors of listed Continental Goldfields were John Stratton, Peter Landau and Hendrik Buitendag. In the light of the Four Corners program, and claims of the raiding of South African stock, Continental Goldfields had an interesting range of investments.
According to an ASX announcement signed off by Landau back in January 2005, Continental Goldfields held 60 million shares in JCI, which was 2% of the issued capital. Continental Goldfields also owned substantial shareholdings in Western Areas Ltd and R&E.
Stratton and Buitendag were directors of South African companies that Continental Goldfields held shares in, and companies that had shares go missing. In his letter to the ASX, Landau described the holding in JCI as a “strategic acquisition”. By the middle of 2005, allegations that shares of Western Areas, JCI and R&E had been stolen started to emerge in South Africa.
In August 2005, Kebble was deposed as a director of the companies. In September 2005, he was killed, shot seven times from close range. As a result of an astonishing sequence of events, Kebble’s killers were indemnified, the prosecution against the one man charged with the crime was botched. Stratton is still fighting extradition back to South Africa http://www.theaustralian.com.
Stratton and Buitendag departed as directors of Continental Goldfields in 2005, and the company’s name changed to Continental Capital. Landau remained as Executive Chairman until they changed name again to Continental Coal. He resigned from CC on the 27 Feb 2012. Interestingly the Landau association with Continental Coal continues. During 2012 Range loaned Continental $2,115,210. No doubt this all makes sense somehow.
Of course Continential Coal is listed on the Peter Landau OKAP Ventures company website as one of the OKAP clients as is Range Resources, Red Emperor, Black Mountain, Kaboko Mining and Nkwe Platinum. Okap Ventures trots out the line that it is “an internationally focused corporate advisory and venture capital firm based in? West Perth, Western Australia and London.”
All the companies operating out of 34 Parliament Place West Perth all skedaddled out of there several months after the Four Corners programme. Bostock Investments put the building up for sale. Not to worry they never went very far they moved across the road to? 1 Havelock Street West Perth Australia!
Peter Landau is at the centre of an international tangled web of listed and former listed companies. Just how much money he makes from them is a question only he can answer. UK Share-holders should realise (As I have) that they have been played for fools. The Range Resources end game is here.
In my opinion there is a big question mark now hanging over Landau at Range Resources.
He has failed. Range has failed. His business dealings are at best described as a convoluted mess. Landau should RESIGN. It stinks!
Daniel Levi
NB. I did contact Peter Landau several times and he did reply several times however he has failed to contact me with a contactable telephone number. I also gave Landau my mobile telephone number. He has had ample opportunity to speak before publication of this article. Despite being holed up in a London Hotel.
Blimey Dan. Good skills.