Lenigas cuts back board duties after oil discovery
THE Australian tycoon claiming to have struck oil in Sussex is pruning down his directorships to focus on making his next fortune.
Serial entrepreneur David Lenigas is chairman of UK Oil & Gas Investments, which holds a 30pc stake in Horse Hill Developments – the firm behind the oil find in the Weald Basin near Gatwick.
But Lenigas has attracted criticism in the City, having at one point been involved in 140 firms.
Speaking to the Mail he admitted he had overstretched himself.
He also hit back at accusations that he exaggerated the scale of the oil discovery to ratchet up his company’s share price.
Shares in UK Oil & Gas Investments soared 169pc on Thursday after analysis suggested there could be up to 100bn barrels of fossil fuels under the Home Counties. US firm Nutech tested the deposits and estimated that between 3pc and 15pc of the oil could realistically be extracted – up to 15bn barrels.
The controversial entrepreneur, who has been criticised for exaggerating the success of his companies to jack up share prices, said: ‘To all those people who say I am hiking up the share price: I am not. I am just saying what the Nutech report says. I am focused on getting the story out there by educating the market on what we do. I feel passionate that this is globally significant for Britain.’
Lenigas, pictured, admitted the number of companies he was involved with had got out of hand. He said: ‘I was on far too many boards last year. I was chairman of ten companies.’
He said he had now reduced his chairmanships to four to focus on the companies involved in the Gatwick bonanza and lithium miner Rare Earth Minerals. A resident of the tax haven of Monaco, Lenigas – who last year lost a court case through one of his former enterprises over the sale of an asset off Malta – is a director of 16 British companies. Trained as a mining engineer, he has a huge following among small investors.
Shares in many of the firms he is involved with are listed on the Alternative Investment Market, London’s notoriously volatile junior stock market.