Federal police raids on the offices of Stephen Silver’s Evolution Capital have become a significant talking point within Sydney’s tight-knit finance community. The corporate regulator’s investigation reportedly concerns unusual share price swings involving some of Evolution’s client companies. Evolution Capital is understood to be a firm involved in capital markets and client investments. No wrongdoing has been found to date. This event has prompted comparisons to similar, widely discussed raids in 2021, which targeted EverBlu chairman Adam Blumenthal.
Those 2021 raids by the Australian Federal Police attended multiple sites linked to Mr. Blumenthal, then chairman of the financial services business EverBlu. The investigation centred on his share-trading activities and loans to Tyson Scholz, known as “ASX Wolf,” including using split buy orders in Creso Pharma, an ASX medicinal cannabis company where he was a director, to artificially inflate perceived demand. ASIC subsequently imposed $950,000 in fines and costs, alongside a five-year disqualification from financial services. Despite this, Mr. Blumenthal, 38, is reportedly behind Oakley Capital Partners, a boutique outfit raising money for small-cap companies, operating through a trust to comply with his ban. His property transactions also include recent multi-million-dollar sales.
More recently, attention has focused on a Vaucluse mansion, previously rented by Mr. Blumenthal and his wife, which was quietly sold for $23.5 million in a private transaction. The buyer was a single-purpose vehicle, with corporate records naming Benoir Bayssari, a property lawyer who has previously represented Mr. Blumenthal, as its sole shareholder. This raised questions regarding whether Mr. Bayssari acted to conceal Mr. Blumenthal’s identity. Mr. Blumenthal, when contacted, denied purchasing the property himself or through his lawyer. However, mortgage documents filed for the property list Mr. Blumenthal’s wife as the borrower for a $7.32 million loan from non-traditional lenders, carrying substantial interest rates. Mr. Blumenthal ceased replying to emails when asked about these documents, leaving questions unanswered within the finance community.
