WMC slips a big deal under the radar

Investing in that great Melbourne mining house, the Western Mining Corporation, has long been filled with promise.

Promise of great things from Canadian gold properties, from Queensland copper-gold tenements bearing the name Ernest Henry, and later, from expansions at the great Olympic Dam deposit and a fertiliser project in Queensland.

(That those promises brought Hugh Matheson Morgan unstuck and he still managed to keep his top job is testament to the fabulous Collins House tradition.)

So why should investors' expectations of appropriate behaviour be raised just because the mining mansion is being split asunder?

In that vein, CBD was surprised to hear WMC chairman Ian Burgess slipping in a few words about the Corridor Sands minerals sands project in Mozambique in his speech to shareholders on Friday.

Given that his words are potentially going to cost WMC shareholders more than $100 million, we'll repeat them.

``The scheme booklet discloses details held in respect of the Corridor Sands minerals sands project," said Burgess. ``I wish to advise that we have entered into discussions with Southern Mining Corporation with a view to purchasing their interest in the project. Negotiations are not final and we cannot at this stage be definite either about details of the proposed transaction, or indeed whether negotiations will be successful.

``However, I do wish to advise that in the event of a successful negotiation, part consideration for the purchase would be by way of issue of WMC Ltd shares in an amount of between 1 and 1.5 per cent of issued share capital."

CBD went back to the scheme documentation to check if any mention had been made of the purchase of the Corridor Sands project before.

It hadn't.

It probably rankles shareholders that the first time they hear of a material deal is at a meeting to decide the future of the company's structure.

If that didn't, then the fact that the old board and management are making material decisions about the future of the company when they're not going to be around to wear the consequences, probably did.

And if neither of those small, yet niggling issues didn't get investors' collective goat, then there's always the issue of the new WMC Resources company getting the mineral sands project after the demerger, while it is the existing, still merged, WMC Ltd, which according to Burgess, is issuing the shares.

In other words, WMC Resources and Alumina will pay for the project while WMC Resources will own it.

Have money, can sue

The end of the Australian Derivatives Exchange promises to be longer and more excruciating than its start. Its high-profile group of directors are far from being off the hook.

One of those increasingly prolific litigation funding outfits likes the prospect of suing the exchange's directors as the liquidator, Steve Parbery of Prentice Parbery Barilla, has contemplated and has offered Parbery a bag full of cash to fund some court action.

Creditors of the exchange decided at a meeting on Friday to set up a creditors' committee.

The litigation fund will report back to that committee and it will decide whether to sue directors for alleged insolvent trading.

Our Brad can add

Brad Cooper is getting so accustomed to being in a witness box that he not only regularly second guesses where a barrister is leading him, but can also predict which bits of his evidence are most likely to catch the attention of the court reporters.

Yesterday he got a fit of giggles in the middle of the following exchange with Bernie Coles, QC, counsel for HIH liquidator Tony McGrath.

Coles: Is any of your own handwriting on that document?

Cooper: It looks like ``one plus one equals two" is mine.

Coles: Why did you write that?

Cooper: I wish I hadn't said that I can envisage some of tomorrow's press.

Coles: No one has doubted your mathematical abilities, at least to that extent.

Cooper: We all have to start somewhere.

And pad and pad

But there was less laughter as the afternoon wore on and Coles, like some of the barristers who have appeared at the HIH Royal Commission, appeared to lose patience with the witness's rambling answers.

As Commissioner Neville Owen remarked in October, ``I think Mr Cooper has a particular way of expressing himself."

Owen was answering a complaint from David Hammerschlag, SC, counsel for Brad's former friend, Rodney Adler, that Cooper was not answering his questions.

``I'm not sure, having heard Mr Cooper's evidence over some considerable length of time, that I would necessarily agree with that, Mr Hammerschlag," Owen said.

Brad was at it again yesterday, with answers such as ``I covered that before when you told me to be succinct", and talking in triplicate. (``I disagree with that completely and entirely and it's not my understanding"; ``Those are invalid, incorrect, not substantiated"; and ``that had been disclosed, discussed and agreed").

He was also extremely careful to avoid giving evidence that could incriminate him by using the word ``privilege". As in: ``Privilege, originally Mr Adler and then Mr Williams, privilege, I believe to the best of my recollection Colin Richardson for a while, privilege Dominic Fodera, privilege Bill Howard and privilege there was another person whose name escapes me."

It probably didn't help that at one point he called Coles ``Mr Myers", presumably mixing up his department stores (Brad being, as he said yesterday, from Melbourne).

It seemed to get on Coles's nerves. In the morning he had been saying ``Just listen carefully to the question, Mr Cooper" and ``We will come to that in the fullness of time, Mr Cooper", but in the afternoon told the witness he was being impertinent.

Brogden's a bargain

Glad to see the proletariat aren't keeping the flashest of nosheries all for themselves.

CBD was pleased to see that exceptional public relations consultant aka the state's Opposition leader John Brogden taking a leaf out of the book of his lefty pal, deputy leader Andrew Refshauge.

First it was Refshauge using the plush confines of Aria to raise some funds.

On Thursday evening it was Brogden's turn to spin some lines in the elegant eatery.

To attend the Refshauge function, attendees had to part with $1250.

At the Liberal Party function at which Brogden spoke an intimate affair of about 20 guests the charge was a mere $700.

Brambles buyers

In all this confusion about some 15 million missing pallets, at least Brambles directors haven't misplaced their wallets.

Knight of the realm Sir David Lees last week shelled out for 10,000 of the company's UK-listed shares at 146.45p per share. In recent days, Brambles chairman Don ``Don't Argue" Argus could see enough value in the one-time growth stock to stump up for 20,000 shares for roughly $90,000.

Obviously Sir David and Argus are backing their boys Sir CK Chow and David Turner to find all those vacationing pallets. So too is Schroder Investment, which yesterday announced it had a substantial interest in Brambles of 5.2 per cent.