Frank Timis
Encyclopedia
Frank Timiş is a Romanian-Australian businessman living in London
, with interests in mining and oil extraction industries. The Sunday Times Rich List
estimated his wealth at £162m (U$238m) , making him the 497th richest person in Britain. The Romanian magazine Capital reckoned Timiş to be the 9th richest Romanian
, estimating his wealth at $290m .
, Maramureş County
, he graduated from a vocational school
for auto mechanic
s. He left Romania
and settled as a refugee in Perth
, Australia
.
. During this time he founded another three companies: Riverdale Mining, Timis Corporation and Carpathian Investments, together with Ioana Timiş and his sister, Ioana Majdik.
Regal Group Services changed its name and headquarters and it is currently listed on the London stock exchange as Regal Petroleum
. This company is associated with a Romanian company, Global Mineral Resources, owned by a son of the former Romanian senator of the Democratic Party, Teodor Hăucă, who used to be secretary of the Economic Commission of the Romanian Senate between 1996 and 2000.
In 1995, Timiş founded Gabriel Resources NL Australia and in the autumn of the same year, the Romanian state-owned mining company "Regia Autonomă a Cuprului din Deva
" (RAC) announced that it searches a partnership with a foreign company for the mining of precious metals from the tailings
in Roşia Montană
and Gurabarză-Brad. However, Jurnalul Naţional
claims that it has collaboration documents signed by RAC Deva and Gabriel Resources one day before the announce was published, on 4 September 1995. Also, RAC claimed it received several offers, including from another Australian company, Lycopodium Pty Ltd., but that company denied that.
According to ASIC, in April 1996, Gabriel Resources NL had financial problems with its creditors, including the National Australia Bank
Ltd and Timiş started a new company after paying all creditors in full. Gabriel Resources Limited, registered in the Jersey tax haven. The mining contract was redirected to the new company. Timiş had now an 80% participation in the joint company. The Romanian Agency of Mineral Resources announced the Ministry of Industry that the new contract is unfavourable for the Romanian state, but was allowed by the Government after a parliamentary vote.
Timiş had access to various databanks of the Romanian research institutes of mineralogy and got data on the area. His company also hired relevant scientists and an ex-officer of the Topographic Department of the Romanian Ministry of Defence who cartographied the area.
Gabriel Resources sent 80 tones of ores to a research lab in Australia to investigate the content of gold. The result was that the ore was high on gold and the market value of Gabriel Resources soared to $75 million and Frank Timiş obtained a $3 million loan from the Rothschild
bank in the United States. Between 1999-2000, the area exploited was changed from 12 km² to 22 km² and then 42.8 km².
The resulting project in Rosia Montana
has been a source of much controversy, with local people lining up on either side of the issue and some international and national environmental groups joining the opposition. One of the sources of controversy involved the method used for mining: gold cyanidation
, which would pollute the area. The company hopes eventually to extract 300 tons of gold and 1600 tons of silver from that area but the project is currently on hold.
Regal Petroleum, founded by Timiş 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 was hoping that the company's survey team found one of the largest finds of oil in Europe: up to a billion barrels. The oil allegedly had so much pressure that the drilling platform was close to being destroyed by it.
This hype drove Regal's share price up to a peak of 509p, the company's market value
reaching £500m, being one the highest valued companies of the Alternative Investment Market. Many private investors and respectable institutions (including Merrill Lynch
, Commerzbank
, Artemis and Schroders
) invested in this company more than £45m. "New Regal shock as ex-chairman's secret sell-off deal is revealed" 21 June 2005 and resigned from the function as chief executive of the company.
However, by mid-2005, the bubble burst and it was clear that there was oil but not in commercial amounts in Regal's oil field and the flow rates were around 30 barrels a day and "deemed to be non-commercial". In a few hours, the stock fell by more than 60% and as of June 2006, the share price is now at 65p, less than 20% of the peak price. In 2010, its value was still worth about £200m, and had cash reserves of £80m, "Regal losses widen after 'difficult' year" 27 June 2006 In February 2006, Regal lost its Ukraine gas production license in a trial but got it back through appeal 1 year later.
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 such booms followed by price fluctuations in the future.
The company has, however, recently been given its licences back which had been frozen by the government, and has begun to produce oil again.
in the northern part of the country, including some important diamond fields and the Tonkolili & Marampa Iron Ore Projects. The company is also exploring for uranium at Lovetta, and for gold and base metals in the Sula Mountains, Gori Hills and Nimini Hills. On 16 August 2007 the AIM
-listed company was renamed African Minerals Limited (AMI.L) to reflect these other interests., On 15 March 2010 AMI announced an initial Mineral Resource estimate of over 10 billion tonnes of iron ore (independently valued) at an average grade of 29.9% Total Iron in the Numbara and Simbili targets at Tonkolili.
Timiş, who is executive chairman of the company, increased his shareholding to 34% in June 2006 and to 34.6% (40,875,002 shares) in September 2006. the entire company was worth £45m (US$65m).
The find by AMI is now recognised world wide as the biggest iron ore find in 20 years and has made Timis over $US500 million. It is now the largest market cap company on AIM.
(EGU.L), a Yukon-incorporated company listed in Toronto and on AIM that owns 95% of Hellas Gold S.A. 21% of that stake was acquired by EGU from Timis himself in 2004 for $77.3m, paid a third in cash and two-thirds in EGU shares, taking his stake to 18.9%. Hellas has three mining projects in Greece (Stratoni, Skouries and Olympias
) and two companies in Romania: 100% of the shares of European Goldfields Deva (with projects at Voia
and Cainel) and 80% of the shares in Deva Gold, Certej, Bolcana and Băiţa-Crăciuneşti.
He sold his entire stake in the company between January and April 2006.
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, with interests in mining and oil extraction industries. The Sunday Times Rich List
Sunday Times Rich List
The Sunday Times Rich List is a list of the 1,000 wealthiest people or families in the United Kingdom, updated annually in April and published as a magazine supplement by British national Sunday newspaper The Sunday Times since 1989...
estimated his wealth at £162m (U$238m) , making him the 497th richest person in Britain. The Romanian magazine Capital reckoned Timiş to be the 9th richest Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
, estimating his wealth at $290m .
Early life
Born in BorşaBorsa
Borșa is a town in eastern Maramureş County, northern Romania, in the valley of the Vişeu River and near the Prislop Pass. Linking Transylvania to Bukovina, Prislop Pass is surrounded by the Rodna and Maramureş Mountains, both ranges of the Carpathians...
, Maramureş County
Maramures County
Maramureș is a county of Romania, in the Maramureș region. The county seat is Baia Mare.- History :* The 10th century frontier county of Borsova was founded by Stephen I of Hungary. Since then Máramaros served as the north-eastern border of the Hungarian Kingdom until 1920, the Trianon Peace...
, he graduated from a vocational school
Vocational school
A vocational school , providing vocational education, is a school in which students are taught the skills needed to perform a particular job...
for auto mechanic
Auto mechanic
An auto mechanic is a mechanic with a variety of car makes or either in a specific area or in a specific make of car. In repairing cars, their main role is to diagnose the problem accurately and quickly...
s. He left Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
and settled as a refugee in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Companies in Australia
Timiş started his own transport company in Australia, which owned only one truck driven by himself and in 1992, he became the CEO of Morwest Holdings Pty Ltd and the first of his business in the gold mining industry. Timiş and two Australian miners dug for six months for gold in a region called Mosquito CreekMosquito Creek
Mosquito Creek may refer to:*Mosquito Creek , a California tributary of the North Fork Feather River*Mosquito Creek , a tributary of the Missouri River*Mosquito Creek , a California tributary of the Feather River source...
. During this time he founded another three companies: Riverdale Mining, Timis Corporation and Carpathian Investments, together with Ioana Timiş and his sister, Ioana Majdik.
Regal Group Services changed its name and headquarters and it is currently listed on the London stock exchange as Regal Petroleum
Regal Petroleum
Regal Petroleum plc is a petroleum company based in London with assets in Romania, Ukraine, Greece, and Egypt. It was founded by Frank Timiş in November 1996, and is listed on the London Alternative Investment Market.-External links:*...
. This company is associated with a Romanian company, Global Mineral Resources, owned by a son of the former Romanian senator of the Democratic Party, Teodor Hăucă, who used to be secretary of the Economic Commission of the Romanian Senate between 1996 and 2000.
Gabriel Resources
- Main articles: Gabriel ResourcesGabriel ResourcesGabriel Resources Ltd. is a multi-national mining firm based in Toronto. Gabriel is currently engaged in the exploration and development of mineral properties in Romania, with its primary focus on the development of its 80% owned controversial Rosia Montana gold project."The company was founded in...
, Roşia MontanăRosia MontanaRoșia Montană is a commune of Alba County in the Apuseni Mountains of western Transylvania, Romania. It is located in the Valea Roșiei, through which the Roșia River flows...
In 1995, Timiş founded Gabriel Resources NL Australia and in the autumn of the same year, the Romanian state-owned mining company "Regia Autonomă a Cuprului din Deva
Deva, Romania
Deva is a city in Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania, on the left bank of the Mureș River. It is the capital of Hunedoara County.-Name:...
" (RAC) announced that it searches a partnership with a foreign company for the mining of precious metals from the tailings
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
in Roşia Montană
Rosia Montana
Roșia Montană is a commune of Alba County in the Apuseni Mountains of western Transylvania, Romania. It is located in the Valea Roșiei, through which the Roșia River flows...
and Gurabarză-Brad. However, Jurnalul Naţional
Jurnalul National
Jurnalul Naţional is a Romanian newspaper, part of the Intact media group led by Dan Voiculescu, which also includes the popular TV station Antena 1....
claims that it has collaboration documents signed by RAC Deva and Gabriel Resources one day before the announce was published, on 4 September 1995. Also, RAC claimed it received several offers, including from another Australian company, Lycopodium Pty Ltd., but that company denied that.
According to ASIC, in April 1996, Gabriel Resources NL had financial problems with its creditors, including the National Australia Bank
National Australia Bank
National Australia Bank is one of the four largest financial institutions in Australia in terms of market capitalisation and customers. NAB is ranked 17th largest bank in the world measured by market capitalisation...
Ltd and Timiş started a new company after paying all creditors in full. Gabriel Resources Limited, registered in the Jersey tax haven. The mining contract was redirected to the new company. Timiş had now an 80% participation in the joint company. The Romanian Agency of Mineral Resources announced the Ministry of Industry that the new contract is unfavourable for the Romanian state, but was allowed by the Government after a parliamentary vote.
Timiş had access to various databanks of the Romanian research institutes of mineralogy and got data on the area. His company also hired relevant scientists and an ex-officer of the Topographic Department of the Romanian Ministry of Defence who cartographied the area.
Gabriel Resources sent 80 tones of ores to a research lab in Australia to investigate the content of gold. The result was that the ore was high on gold and the market value of Gabriel Resources soared to $75 million and Frank Timiş obtained a $3 million loan from the Rothschild
N M Rothschild & Sons
N M Rothschild & Sons is a private investment banking company, belonging to the Rothschild family...
bank in the United States. Between 1999-2000, the area exploited was changed from 12 km² to 22 km² and then 42.8 km².
The resulting project in Rosia Montana
Rosia Montana
Roșia Montană is a commune of Alba County in the Apuseni Mountains of western Transylvania, Romania. It is located in the Valea Roșiei, through which the Roșia River flows...
has been a source of much controversy, with local people lining up on either side of the issue and some international and national environmental groups joining the opposition. One of the sources of controversy involved the method used for mining: gold cyanidation
Gold cyanidation
Gold cyanidation is a metallurgical technique for extracting gold from low-grade ore by converting the gold to a water soluble coordination complex. It is the most commonly used process for gold extraction...
, which would pollute the area. The company hopes eventually to extract 300 tons of gold and 1600 tons of silver from that area but the project is currently on hold.
Regal Petroleum
- Main article: Regal PetroleumRegal PetroleumRegal Petroleum plc is a petroleum company based in London with assets in Romania, Ukraine, Greece, and Egypt. It was founded by Frank Timiş in November 1996, and is listed on the London Alternative Investment Market.-External links:*...
Regal Petroleum, founded by Timiş in November 1996 was listed on the London Alternative Investment Market
Alternative Investment Market
AIM is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange, allowing smaller companies to float shares with a more flexible regulatory system than is applicable to the main 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
Kavala
Kavala , is the second largest city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala peripheral unit. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. The Regal board was hoping that the company's survey team found one of the largest finds of oil in Europe: up to a billion barrels. The oil allegedly had so much pressure that the drilling platform was close to being destroyed by it.
This hype drove Regal's share price up to a peak of 509p, the company's market value
Market value
Market value is the price at which an asset would trade in a competitive auction setting. Market value is often used interchangeably with open market value, fair value or fair market value, although these terms have distinct definitions in different standards, and may differ in some...
reaching £500m, being one the highest valued companies of the Alternative Investment Market. Many private investors and respectable institutions (including Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
, Commerzbank
Commerzbank
Commerzbank AG is the second-largest bank in Germany, after Deutsche Bank, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main.-Activities:Commerzbank is mainly active in commercial bank, retail banking and mortgaging. It suffered reversals in investment banking in early 2000s and scaled back its Securities unit...
, Artemis and Schroders
Schroders
Schroders plc is a British multinational asset management company with over 200 years of experience in the world's financial markets. The company employs 2,905 people worldwide who are operating from 32 offices in 25 different countries around Europe, America, Asia and the Middle East...
) invested in this company more than £45m. "New Regal shock as ex-chairman's secret sell-off deal is revealed" 21 June 2005 and resigned from the function as chief executive of the company.
However, by mid-2005, the bubble burst and it was clear that there was oil but not in commercial amounts in Regal's oil field and the flow rates were around 30 barrels a day and "deemed to be non-commercial". In a few hours, the stock fell by more than 60% and as of June 2006, the share price is now at 65p, less than 20% of the peak price. In 2010, its value was still worth about £200m, and had cash reserves of £80m, "Regal losses widen after 'difficult' year" 27 June 2006 In February 2006, Regal lost its Ukraine gas production license in a trial but got it back through appeal 1 year later.
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 such booms followed by price fluctuations in the future.
The company has, however, recently been given its licences back which had been frozen by the government, and has begun to produce oil again.
African Minerals (AMI.L, was Sierra Leone Diamond Corporation)
In 2005, the Timiş Trust bought 30% of the shares of the Sierra Leone Diamond Corporation, via the Trust's Bermuda-registered Timis Diamond Corporation Limited. SLDC holds mineral rights over a third of the area of Sierra LeoneSierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
in the northern part of the country, including some important diamond fields and the Tonkolili & Marampa Iron Ore Projects. The company is also exploring for uranium at Lovetta, and for gold and base metals in the Sula Mountains, Gori Hills and Nimini Hills. On 16 August 2007 the AIM
Alternative Investment Market
AIM is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange, allowing smaller companies to float shares with a more flexible regulatory system than is applicable to the main market....
-listed company was renamed African Minerals Limited (AMI.L) to reflect these other interests., On 15 March 2010 AMI announced an initial Mineral Resource estimate of over 10 billion tonnes of iron ore (independently valued) at an average grade of 29.9% Total Iron in the Numbara and Simbili targets at Tonkolili.
Timiş, who is executive chairman of the company, increased his shareholding to 34% in June 2006 and to 34.6% (40,875,002 shares) in September 2006. the entire company was worth £45m (US$65m).
The find by AMI is now recognised world wide as the biggest iron ore find in 20 years and has made Timis over $US500 million. It is now the largest market cap company on AIM.
European Goldfields
In 2000 Frank Timiş bought 15% of European GoldfieldsEuropean Goldfields
European Goldfields Ltd. is an EU focused, Whitehorse based Canadian precious metals company engaged in gold, silver and copper exploration, development and production...
(EGU.L), a Yukon-incorporated company listed in Toronto and on AIM that owns 95% of Hellas Gold S.A. 21% of that stake was acquired by EGU from Timis himself in 2004 for $77.3m, paid a third in cash and two-thirds in EGU shares, taking his stake to 18.9%. Hellas has three mining projects in Greece (Stratoni, Skouries and Olympias
Olympias
Olympias was a Greek princess of Epirus, daughter of king Neoptolemus I of Epirus, the fourth wife of the king of Macedonia, Philip II, and mother of Alexander the Great...
) and two companies in Romania: 100% of the shares of European Goldfields Deva (with projects at Voia
Voia
Voia may refer to several villages in Romania:* Voia, a village in Crângurile Commune, Dâmboviţa County* Voia, a village in Balşa Commune, Hunedoara County...
and Cainel) and 80% of the shares in Deva Gold, Certej, Bolcana and Băiţa-Crăciuneşti.
He sold his entire stake in the company between January and April 2006.