Young IT entrepreneur Nicholas Bolton – who famously acquired a big stake in toll road fund BrisConnections and then tried to have the fund’s management removed – has emerged with a 6% stake in Multiplex Prime Property Fund.
Bolton, who owns two domain name reselling companies, lodged a substantial shareholder notice with the ASX last Thursday, revealing he had accumulated over 5% of the company’s shares. He paid $17,778 for the shares.
Ironically, the shares have a partly-paid structure, similar to BrisConnections’ shares.
But Bolton told the Australian Financial Review that while he acknowledged the similarities between the investments in the Multiplex fund and BrisConnections, his intentions are not the same.
“I have no intention to requisition a meeting. We have a very fluid position at the moment.”
Bolton was heavily criticised for his intervention at BrisConnections and was even accused of greenmail, a process by which an investor takes a minority stake in a company, and agitates for change in order to force the company to buy them out.
Bolton became the largest shareholder in BrisConnections, which is building Brisbane’s $4.9 billion toll road project linking the city and airport, after amassing his 19.7% stake for less than $100,000 after the company’s stock plunged to just 0.1c last year.
But he then claimed he was unaware that each unit holder is required to pay a $2-per-share installment to BrisConnections over the next 12 months. That meant Bolton faced a debt of $154 million on his shares.
Bolton then called an extraordinary general meeting of the company in the hope of winding up the company and getting out of paying the installments.
But before the meeting in April, Bolton sold the voting rights to his shares to Leighton Holdings, the major contractor working on the road, for $4.5 million. Leighton then voted Bolton’s shares against the wind-up resolution and Bolton offloaded his shares to a family friend under a pre-arranged option deal. .
Bolton denied the claims of greenmail.
Shares in the Multiplex fund area trading at 0.1c, the lowest possible price on the ASX.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
