Lone Star Value Raises Questions About CEO's Share Trading Activity In The Days Leading Up To Antares' Asset Sale Announcement

NEW YORK, July 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Lone Star Value Investors, LP ("Lone Star Value") owns 7% of Antares Energy Limited ("Antares") (ASX: AZZ) (AZZEF) and is seeking to upgrade and enhance Antares' Board through the election of five new independent directors and the removal of two employee directors at a General Meeting of Antares scheduled for July 22, 2014. Lone Star Value today issued a statement questioning recent share trading activity by Antares' Chairman and CEO, James Cruickshank, in the days immediately preceding the announcement of Antares' planned asset sale in June of last year.

According to public disclosure, on June 18, 19, 20, and 24 of last year, Mr. Cruickshank purchased in the open market a total of 125,000 Antares' shares at prices ranging between $0.30 and $0.325 per share. On June 26, 2013, only two days after the last of these trades, Antares publicly announced its plans to sell all its assets at a large premium to the value implied by Antares' stock price. On the day of this announcement, Antares' stock price closed at $0.48, up 71% from the prior day's close of $0.28.

Australian securities laws prohibit individuals from trading in securities while in possession of material non-public information related to such securities. Furthermore, Antares maintains a Security Trading Policy which expressly prohibits key management personnel, including the Chairman and CEO, from buying, selling, or otherwise dealing in securities of the Company while in possession of information that is not generally available to the public and can be expected to have a material effect on the price or value of the Company's securities. 

Jeff Eberwein, founder of Lone Star Value and candidate to the Antares Board stated "We have reviewed Antares' security trading policy and applicable Australian securities laws and, in the absence of a proper explanation from Mr Cruickshank, we believe that Mr. Cruickshank's purchases in the week before the asset sale announcement likely violate all. It is hard to imagine the Chairman and CEO of Antares was not aware of the planned asset sale two days prior to its public announcement. Accordingly, when Mr. Cruickshank purchased shares before the price jumped by more than 70%, he appears to have used his position to personally benefit from Company information. This is the very definition of self-dealing and the precise reason why insider trading laws and policies are adopted in the first place – to protect the investing public from being taken advantage of by better informed corporate executives. In the absence of a proper and fulsome justification for his conduct, Mr. Cruickshank appears to have used his knowledge and position to his advantage at the expense of common shareholders who did not have the same market-moving information he had."

"We expect that in accordance with its responsibility to shareholders, the Board would have completed an investigation of Mr. Cruickshank's recent trading activity and will immediately release publicly the results of this investigation. We also demand that the Board immediately let shareholders know whether any related inquiries or investigations have been launched by any government authorities. Shareholders should know all the facts as well as what disciplinary action the Board plans to take (if any) before they cast their vote on the election of directors at the general meeting."

Lone Star Value urges all Antares shareholders to read carefully the materials that Lone Star Value has mailed and may continue to mail to them as those materials contain important information.  Lone Star Value called on all Antares shareholders to vote on its blue and white proxy card to improve the Board of Antares.

For further information please visit our website, www.antaresvalue.com.au, or call our shareholder information line, 1300 889 468 (from within Australia) or +61 2 8022 7902 (from outside Australia).

Proxy voting enquiries please contact:
Australia:
Murray Williams
GPS
+61 2 8022 7911
[email protected]

USA:
John Grau
InvestorCom
203-972-9300 x11
[email protected]

Media enquiries please contact:
John Hurst
Cannings Corporate Communications
 +61 418 708 663

SOURCE Lone Star Value Investors, LP