Commission stamps on illegal offer

Securities Commission chair Jane Diplock Photo / Richard Robinson

The Securities Commission has banned a website and required removal of its content for a New Zealand company seeking public funds to build gasification plant in New Zealand to generate electricity.

The Securities Commission is warning against investment in Ira NRG NZ Ltd (INNL), a company registered in March and sporting some 246 shareholders in New Zealand, Australia and the United States, most holding parcels in the multi-millions.

The company has no registered prospectus.

"The public offer of shares by INNL is illegal as there is no prospectus. Any purported allotment of shares to investors would be void and of no effect. People should not invest in this company until it complies with the requirements of the Securities Act 1978" said Securities Commission chair Jane Diplock.

INNL's sole director is Simon Romana, who appears on internet sites as the owner and founder of a Winnipeg, Canada-based company offering a new gasification technology, which spent some time in dispute earlier this decade with a New Zealand gasification system inventor.

The commissions says the INNL website described INNL's plans to generate electricity and sell it to the national grid.

"The website included claims of future income that are not substantiated on the website. There were no assumptions disclosed relating to the prospective financial information as required by law," the commission said.

INNL was incorporated in March 2010 and its Canadian variant in 2005.