COMMERCIAL Committee Told Of Inside Knowledge On Poseidon

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32362, 30 July 1970, Page 20

COMMERCIAL Committee Told Of Inside Knowledge On Poseidon

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) PERTH, July 29. A doctor from Perth told the Australian Senate select committee that it was common knowledge that at least three stockbroking firms, and people who were associated with them, were able to capitalise to an enormous extent on Poseidon’s nickel strike.

Dr M. K. Anderson said that at least one of these three was asked by a director of Poseidon to buy Poseidon shares.

he was anxious to seek answers. These were:—

time when the share* were well below par on the market. He emphasised that the company was an industrial, not a mining company. Clarence Oil and Minerals Company N.L., report that the interpretation of the seismic survey of off-shore New South Wales has been completed by Murphy (Australia) Oil Company. The report indicates that several large, deep structures are present.

1. Why did certain broker’s houses in Perth appear to have considerable prior knowledge of the success of the testing at Windarra?

He will name the firms to the committee, in camera. He said that he had held 4200 shares in Poseidon in September, 1969, and that he had owned them for two years.

2. What advice was a stock broker in Adelaide giving his clients during the week of September 23 when, as a director of Poseidon, he told his shareholders that he was Ignorant of any reasons as to why interest was being shown in Poseidon shares?

He said that on Friday, September 26, his broker said he would be wise to sell his shares. A second broker’s advice was the same. “As a result I s . my Poseidon shares on Friday, September 26 at 150 c,” Dr Anderson said. “During the next two to three days trading in Poseidon shares on the exchange became hectic, and about September 30 the report of the assay figures at Windarra was released; after this the market value of the shares continued to rise,” he said. Dr Anderson said that there were two questions to which

An accountant, Mr D. W. Allan, of Perth, told the committee that there seemed to be a definite leakage of information on Poseidon in Perth at the time of the Windarra nickel strike. .Mr Allan will also name to the committee in camera, a public company which made an issue of partly paid shares on a one for one basis, at a

MR R. B. DUNCAN, an Auckland solicitor and company director, who has been appointed to the board of Associated Group Securities, Ltd. He 1* also a director of the National Trading Company of New Zealand, Ltd; Industrial Steel and Plant, Ltd; Mogal Transportation, Ltd; and a local director of the Trustees Executors and Agency Company of New Zealand, Ltd.