Edward Pastorini called, apparently. The mystery — and controversial — investor who, for a short time, added 11% (about $1billion) to Gold Fields’ market capitalisation, has been the subject of intense media and regulator scrutiny after news of his possible takeover bid was published last week.
The share price spike in the absence of a formal offer, and little or no available information on Pastorini and his partners, brought suspicions that the exercise was a deliberate leak designed to profit from cashing in on a rampant Gold Fields share price on the back of false or incorrect bid rumours.
The Financial Services Board (FSB) announced the launch of a full forensic investigation into the incident and is probing share sales in the wake of the takeover report, which was published last week.
FSB executive director of market abuse Gerhard van Deventer told the Mail & Guardian this week that there was a strong indication that the mooted deal was not genuine and that the mysterious Edward Pastorini was somehow linked to a Florida-based company called Hollingsworth, Rothwell and Roxford. (HRR)
Van Deventer said HRR had been “involved in this type of thing before” and that the FSB would be investigating who may have beneÂfited from the sale of Gold Field shares after the price hike.
Pastorini has said he intends pursuing the bid. Earlier this week, he sent a letter to Gold Fields outlining his offer and he claims to have been in contact with the FSB as well.
There has been speculation that Pastorini is an alias for a fictitious character conjured up for the purposes of ramping the Gold Fields share price. His key contact point has been a telephone number in San Francisco, which is answered by voice mail, and he and his company do not show up in Google searches.
A message left on his telephone answering service produced a call in less than an hour, the voice on the other end saying: “I’m Edward Pastorini.” He invited questions to be emailed to him via an AOL email address, saying he would reply within the hour.
Pastorini called the press coverage of him and his company, “nothing but lies” and insisted that the deal was genuine. “We are very real, as are all of our partners,” he said. “Ask the 30 gold companies we contacted to join us on the Gold Fields acquisition.”
Pastorini claims that he personally answered all of Van Deventer’s questions and called on the FSB to go after the Gold Fields’ executive who leaked the deal to Bloomberg News.
“We are tired of all of the lies that have been published about us in the media and we want to set the record straight — particularly since we are hoping that the FSB will do the right thing and go after that Gold Fields executive who leaked our deal,” he said.
Pastorini insisted that neither he nor his partners had sold any Gold Fields shares recently and that they were currently waiting for a response from Gold Fields’ CEO Ian Cockerill, who they were hoping to meet with next week.
As for HRR, Pastorini said he and his partners nearly joined the Florida company in late 2002, but decided against it because they preferred mining stocks to industrial stocks. He said Theodore Roxford is his cousin who is retired and writing books.
When the M&G asked Pastorini for details regarding the whereabouts of his offices, he refused, stating it was private information. He also refused to supply the M&G with a photograph of himself.
“I have a photograph, but as someone who has prided himself on being private for all of his life, why would I want to ever give you a photo of me?”