The title above is shared with a song I remember from my Sea Scout days. I can still smell those jumpers we had to wear. But by God, I looked good! And you should have seen my woggle!

This week’s contribution to help you understand Wales takes us down to Pembrokeshire. And a tip I received from the ever-alert Nicola Lund (@MrsLund1). It’s about a small company that seems to be doing remarkably well. Or maybe it’s folded.

Unless I get distracted and go down too many rabbit holes this should be a quickie.

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G’DAY, MATE

Yes, it’s an Australian company. By the name of Bombora Wave Power Europe Ltd, which has facilities in Pembroke. Here’s the website.

Consulting the Companies House entry we see it’s a one-man band, and that one man is Sam Russell Leighton. Turning to ‘significant control’ tells us ownership rests with Bombora Wave Power Pty Ltd in Australia. The company address given is a PO Box in the northern suburbs of Perth.

If we scroll down to the Certificate of Incorporation we see the UK company was originally named Bombora Europe Ltd, but the address given for Russell was an enterprise centre just south of the Swan River in Perth. The single share issued for the European entity is of course held by the Australian company.

To find out more about the holding company in Oz I went to the Australian equivalent of Companies House. Where I learnt the parent company was registered 04.07.2011.

Here’s the company document I downloaded. You’ll see there are two directors; Sam Leighton and Allyn Murray Wasley, who is still based in Perth. Directors who left the company last year include two Japanese, a Dutchman living in India, and Andrew Clive Buglas of Worcestershire.

Here’s the announcement from 2020 of Buglas becoming a Bombora director.

Confusingly, Buglas’ Linkedin page says he left Bombera in November 2022 but the company document from Australia says he left February 2024. Could be a typo, I suppose. The point is, he’s gone.

Why did so many directors leave Bombora last year?

Turning to the shares, 304,591,633 have been issued. Which is impressive. Though Leighton himself seems to be a minority shareholder. The biggest shareholders would appear to be the family of Glen Lee Ryan, who may have invented the wave power machine Leighton has been working on in Pembroke.

Here’s Ryan telling us about his invention.

Anyway, you can go through the shareholders yourself. You’ll see there’s a Welshpool in Western Australia, and the only shareholder from Wales I could see is Stepan Labounek, a Czech living in Bridgend.

The only other UK address among the shareholders is that for Enzen Ltd in Solihull. Now owned by NXZEN, with just over 73 million Bombora shares. The accounts for Enzen are almost a year overdue with Companies House. As are the accounts for NXZEN Global Ltd.

To cut a long story short, I believe NXZEN is owned, via the Glas Trust Corporation, by global equity firm Levine Leichtman Capital Partners of Beverly Hills. I find this interesting because in July Glas cropped up when I wrote about small companies in Cardiff suddenly hitting the big time in retrofitting homes with expensive equipment to save the planet.

It’s all here in Saving The Planet – The Globalist Way!

And now we see Levine Leichtman cropping up again in connection with a ‘green’ project in Wales. What a remarkable coincidence!

Apropos of nothing, Capital Law is a big firm in Cardiff that works for the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’. And as the website makes clear, Capital Law also works with the ‘Welsh Government’-owned Development Bank of Wales (DBW).

Google AI even tells us:

So I was not entirely surprised to read that Capital Law has also had some involvement with the boys from Beverly Hills.

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MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

Let’s go back to the (UK) Companies House documents for Bombora, and in particular, the finances, or rather, the loans. And Google AI Overview:

Bombora secured a £10.3 million European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant, administered through the Welsh Government, to support its Pembrokeshire Demonstration Project for the mWave wave energy converter. This funding is part of a total project investment of £17 million. 

So if that’s £10.3m from the ERDF, can we assume that the remainder of the project cost of £17m came from the ‘Welsh Government’ through the DBW? Which would be explained by the five outstanding charges, from 2019, with the DBW?

There was a further arrangement in 2022 with HSBC.

Also the £3.54 million from Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd of Japan. Which would account for the Japanese directors of the Australian parent company. But they left last year, so what does that tell us?

I checked addresses for Bombora, and found the correspondence address given is a residential property in Milford Haven. But the business premises is a rather strange-looking building in Pembroke Dock, which might be owned by the county council.

Clearly, a great deal of money has gone into Bombora. At least £20 million. Was it worth it? Are the wave energy machines Bombora produces viable? Is the company creating employment for locals?

I don’t want to sound overly negative, but I have many questions. And sometimes my doubts can be triggered in the strangest way. Let’s go back to the website to give you an example.

On the homepage, top right, we see the tab ‘News’. I always find this irresistible. So let’s click on it. There’s nothing after August 2022. Before that there were regular entries, but nothing for over three years. Why?

The whole website has a kind of ‘neglected’, not updated, look to it.

Then, in May this year, Companies House was notified that the man behind Bombora, Sam Russell Leighton, had either moved back to Australia, or perhaps had never left.

The most recent accounts show a company in debt to the tune of over £5 million.

It would be a hell of a lot more were it not for ‘Intangible assets’ of over £18.5 million. But ‘intangible’ could be anything, or nothing. I could value my ready wit and beguiling demeanour at £50 million. (And they’d be undervalued!)

It makes me fear these wave energy machines may already be at the bottom of Shit Creek rather than heralding a brave new dawn on the Cleddau.

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CONCLUSION

An Australian company turns up in Wales and gets the red carpet treatment.

This sort of thing happens all the time. Just give out some spiel about the environment, green energy, diversity, fascist farmers, misinformation, and some clown in Corruption Bay will respond with, “How much do you need?“.

But there’s no benefit to us from any of it. We’re just expected to feel morally uplifted while we watch out for the bailiffs.

So let’s finish with a mix of questions and observations.

If my fears are unfounded, and Bombora’s wave machines are a huge success, where will the profits go? Answer: back to the shareholders of the parent company in Australia. And of course, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners of Beverly Hills.

If the wave energy machines are a failure, who’s out of pocket? Answer: those who’ve put up money, including the Development Bank of Wales. In other words, you and me.

Which then prompts the question: how much exactly has DBW-‘Welsh Government’ given to Bombora? Similar question for Pembrokeshire County Council.

I’m not the first to wonder this. A Freedom of Information request was sent to the ‘Welsh Government’ about a year ago. Here’s the response. A similar request went to the county council. Here’s the very slippery reply.

I thought that the job of the Development Bank of Wales was to encourage the growth of Welsh businesses. So why did it fund an Australian company?

How odd that I should mention, twice in six months, Glas and owner Levine Leichtman.

How well known to each other are Levine Leichtman, DBW, and Capital Law? Mayhap they co-operated on the Bombora project? Other projects?

How many more foreign companies will be fawned over and funded before politicians, Development Bank of Wales, civil servants and others, realise the only way to achieve a healthy Welsh economy is to encourage indigenous businesses?

Of course, I’m assuming they want Wales to be an economic success. But after 26 years of the disaster that is devolution, I’m no longer sure.

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© Royston Jones 2025