RE: AMI suspention 8 Mar 2015 16:35
Don`t shoot the messenger please.
It could be a condition of AML alone being admitted on AIM in particular as Timis was co- founder and seeing as he has had form and been find once before sometime ago by AIM for misleading RNS`s vie Regal Petroleum read on!
Regal Petroleum, founded by Timiș in November 1996, was listed on the London Alternative Investment Market and owned some oil and gas resources in Romania and Ukraine. However, it became famous after the September 2003 acquisition of 60% of an oilfield located in Kavala, Greece. The Regal board hoped that the company's survey team had found one of the largest oil deposits in Europe: up to a billion barrels. The oil was allegedly under so much pressure that it almost destroyed the drilling platform.[7]
This hype drove Regal's share price up to a peak of 509p, with the company's market value reaching £500m, making it one of the highest-valued companies of the Alternative Investment Market. Many private investors and respectable institutions (including Merrill Lynch, Commerzbank, Artemis and Schroders) invested more than £45m in the company. Days later, Timiș secretly agreed to sell the company's assets[8] and the resigned as chief executive of the company.[9]
By mid-2005, it was clear that Regal's oil field contained oil but not in commercial amounts. The flow rates were around 30 barrels a day and "deemed to be non-commercial".[7] In a few hours, the stock fell by more than 60%, and as of June 2006, the share price was at 65p, less than 20% of the peak price. In 2010, the company was still worth about £200m, and had cash reserves of £80m,[10] In February 2006, Regal lost its Ukraine gas production license in a trial but got it back through appeal one year later.[11]
In June 2005, an environmental group, Alburnus Maior, asked the Romanian Supreme Court, under the freedom of information laws, whether Timiș was under any investigations. The answer was that his name was linked with three dossiers investigated by the organised crime department. However, Timiș denied all the claims and no charges were ever filed.[12] Later queries to the Romanian administration on this subject were given the answer that there are no investigations concerning Timiș.[13]
Due to the collapse in the share price of this company, the Alternative Investment Market decided in 2006 to toughen regulations for companies in the natural resources sector and to hire experts who would prevent future bubbles followed by price fluctuations.[14]
The company has, however, recently been given back licences that had been frozen by the government, and has begun to produce oil again
Sign In
Follow the stocks
