Kolkata, August 8th 2008.
We had issued a press release yesterday (07/08/08) pointing out misstatements in the prospectus of Austral Coke and Projects limited and an attempt on the part of Austral to use the reputation and goodwill of Gujarat NRE Coke to sell their issue. Various newspapers have covered the same in light of which we would like to make the following clarifications :
1. The promoters of Austral Coke Mr Ratan Lal Tamakuwala and Mr Rishi Raj Agarwal were "employees" of Gujarat NRE Coke Limited. They were "Expelled" from the company. The term "family dispute" is not applicable as the case against the father-son duo was not about the division of family properties.
2. Public Limited Listed Companies are not family fiefdoms. To hint that a management complaint is a "family dispute" points at the utter disregard to corporate governance ethics.
3. Various cases are pending against the duo before the Hon’ble Calcutta High Court. Cases relating to the defalcation of shareholder funds - not family property.
4. Austral Coke has made several misstatements in the prospectus. While they have only two running chimneys, they have claimed to have four chimneys seeking to pass off two under construction chimneys as running ones. This in itself is a serious offense and warrants immediate investigation.
5. Austral Coke has claimed a current production capacity of 3.75 lakh tpa. As per technical specifications of ovens, with two chimneys cannot give them a production figure more than 60,000 to 70,000 tons of coke. Even with four chimneys as claimed by Austral, they cannot produce more than 1.40 lakh tpa of coke. We will again urge the media to visit the Austral Coke Plant in Lunva, Taluka Bhachau, Gujarat to verify the claims of the company.
6. The Austral Coke Prospectus does not disclose the actual production figures.
7. Gujarat NRE Coke has already sent and requested SEBI and the Company Law Board to consider the press release issued yesterday as an FIR and initiate appropriate investigation against the promoters of Austral Coke.
8. Gujarat NRE Coke would like to ask the Merchant Bankers and various other "interested parties" who have lent their names to the issue as to whether they are aware to the aforesaid facts and whether they can stand up and verify under oath one simple thing - that Austral Coke had four chimneys that are in operation as mentioned and certified in the prospectus dated 18.07.08.
9. A question was raised by the media yesterday as to why we initiated this process on the day of the opening of the Austral Coke public issue. We would like to point out the fact that the Draft Red Herring Prospectus of Austral Coke, which was scanned by us in early July 2008 (www.sebi.gov.in/dp/australcoke.pdf) and is available even today on SEBI’s website (DRHP) had mentioned only two chimneys (Page No.87). Neither Research Reports with reference to Gujarat NRE Coke were in circulation. Only when the current prospectus with glaring misstatements and various research reports referring to us were available to us, and after Gujarat NRE Coke shareholders called us on Wednesday, 06.08.2008 and demanded action that we started initiating appropriate steps to safeguard our reputation.
10. We are enclosing herewith a photograph taken from the Corporate Presentation of Austral Coke which clearly shows only two chimneys with a third stub under construction. This corporate presentation was there in the austral coke website till the morning of the 7th of August and was removed hastily after the media questioned the management of Austral Coke about the veracity of the claims made in the prospectus. Please note – the Austral Coke Management is still silent about the number of Chimneys and their production capacities.
For More Information Contact :
Suvobrata Ganguly
+ 91 9831008013
[email protected]
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