Melbourne, Australia – Well, it’s just like old times. Joseph Gutnick is making a takeover bid and the target is none other than a company intent on mining diamonds.

The bid is for North Australia Diamonds and is pitched at the princely sum of 1.2¢ a share, a price that values the whole box and dice at $24 million.

Now we all know about Gutnick and diamonds. His pursuit of them is, to put it kindly, an obsession and follows words from the New York-based Lubavitcher Rebbe 21 years ago to the effect that Gutnick would make mind-boggling discoveries of gold and diamonds within five years.

The gold prediction certainly came true, but the diamonds part of the late Rebbe’s prophecy remains just that, despite the shovelling of a fair amount of dirt by Gutnick’s companies.

At least he hasn’t given up and yesterday’s bid to acquire all of North Australian Diamonds continues Gutnick’s quest for large-scale quantities of a girl’s best friend.

The target company’s main asset is the Merlin diamond project, about 100 kilometres from Borroloola in the Northern Territory.

There’s no question there are diamonds there, but they weren’t found by Joseph Gutnick. The formerly listed Ashton Mining discovered the project and Rio Tinto sold it to North Australian Diamonds in 2004 after it took over Ashton.

As Gutnick will tell you, previous mining operations at Merlin produced 507,000 carats of diamonds including Australia’s biggest diamond, weighing in at 104.73 carats and worth more than $US500,000 in 2002.

Rio didn’t want the project as it was too small and it’s conceivable that a small outfit such as North Australian Diamonds could make a quid out of it. But the demand for diamonds in these stretched times has declined and it could be some time before Merlin turns a profit.

Gutnick’s cash bid is being made through Legend International Holdings, a Delaware-domiciled company that is listed on the over-the-counter market in the US.

Legend’s main claims to fame are phosphate deposits in Queensland and its plan is to produce 5 million tonnes of phosphate rock a year, which would, if achieved, make it one of the biggest phosphate rock producers on the planet.

Legend went for a huge run last year and its scrip made it up to $US5.05. Nowadays it fetches around US57¢, which still values it at $A169 million.

Legend isn’t the first fortune made by Gutnick – described in the takeover documents as “a prominent Australian mining industry entrepreneur, who has overseen some of Australia’s largest and most prestigious resource discoveries” – and probably won’t be the last.

Gutnick’s interests already control North Australian Diamonds with about 34 per cent of the capital, held by Legend and another Gutnick entity, Yahalom International Resources Corporation.

Sitting around the Legend boardroom table are such figures as David Tyrwhitt, one-time heavy at Newmont and Ashton, and let’s not forget long-time Gutnick mate, Henry Herzog.

Interests associated with Herzog hold 11 million North Australian Diamond shares.

(The Age)