Savannah Resources Share Discussion Threads

[paleje] 05/3/2018 00:49

Good post seagullsslimjim.

Not sure whether it affects us adversely here, I think probably not but a lot of companies out there will be looking over their shoulders.

[seagullsslimjim] 03/3/2018 21:47

hxxps://www.sharesoc.org/blog/regulations-and-law/beaufort-regulators-us-prosecutors-expose-wide-ranging-scam/

Beaufort and the Regulators: US Prosecutors Expose Wide Ranging Scam
News began to emerge yesterday of problems at broker Beaufort Securities. Firstly, the FCA posted this RNS stating that brokerages Beaufort Securities Limited and Beaufort Asset Clearing Services Limited had been placing into insolvency, must cease all regulated activities, and that administrators had been appointed who would seek to protect client assets.

Not long after, this indictment by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) came to light, alleging market manipulation in the US by Beaufort Securities and the individual Peter Kyriacou. This announcement of a much broader indictment, naming a further 5 individual defendants and two further corporate defendants, as well as Beaufort and Kyriacou, was then drawn to my attention.

These announcements appear to lift the lid on long suspected scams. The nature of the pump and dump scams, set out in the indictments involved:

Principals in the scams acquiring microcap shell companies, traded on the US OTC market (but the same modus operandi could apply on AIM), which started out as very illiquid
The Principals inserting their own management into those companies, who would issue press releases of “news that’s not really news” at “certain points in time.”
Kyriacou allegedy said: “That’s what we need. We need for these smaller cap companies,
the problem is…when they initially raise money, the news flow goes dry after, and then the share price starts to trickle down…. You need constant news on these companies.”
The indictment goes on to describe “wash trades”, whereby owners of the stock in the subject company use nominees to buy and sell stock to themselves, giving the appearance that the stock is liquid and trading actively (at whatever prices the scammers choose). Remember, if you study trades, that for every apparent buyer there must be a seller.
The combination of constant newsflow, promotion via bulletin boards and other social media and apparent liquidity/buying interest entices naïve investors to purchase the stock from the Principals netting the latter a large profit and leaving the former holding the baby when, ultimately, the worthless nature of the subject company is exposed.
One sad aspect of this type of scam, which I have observed, is that the naïve investors who have been duped refuse to believe that the company they have invested in is not what they believe it be. Though not part of the scam themselves, they will often attack anyone posting comments suggesting that the subject company may have been “pumped up”, accusing such posters of “deramping”, rather than studying causes for concern carefully.

A long list of AIM companies that Beaufort has been involved with can be seen here:

Whilst the fact of Beaufort’s involvement does not necessarily mean that those companies are not what they appear to be, I would urge any investors or potential investors in them to consider carefully whether the company’s history and track record fits the pattern the indictments have described.

It is disappointing, but not surprising to me, that these allegations have only come to light through the work of the US SEC, who conducted a sophisticated sting operation to uncover the alleged nefarious activities of the defendants. Where are the FCA, the AIM regulatory team and the SFO in the UK? As you may be aware, ShareSoc has been running a campaign to improve the AIM market for several years. We have held several meetings with Marcus Stuttard, head of AIM, and principals of the regulatory team. We hope that this exposé by the SEC will act as a wake up call.

However, a clear issue which this case highlights is whether these regulatory and law enforcement bodies have sufficient resources to be able to conduct similar operations to uncover perpetrators of such scams and, when they are uncovered, whether the penalties that can be imposed in the UK are sufficient deterrent. I will discuss with my ShareSoc board colleagues what we can do to prompt a parliamentary enquiry into such matters.

Mark Bentley

[broncowarrior] 03/3/2018 18:32

Article in the Times about Beaufort, being investigated by the FBI for fraud! Blimey.

[paleje] 02/3/2018 19:50

They were crooks Ged, the US have nicked them and others.

[ged5] 02/3/2018 14:59

Just power of deduction my dear Yorkie. See post 427.

I don't think Oman will be put to one side but I do agree with others that Portugal will be the Number One project. More news from Oman soon!

Your sympathy is felt by all, BW.

Ironic that one of the last things they did was to publish that brilliant interview with David Archer

[yorkie14] 02/3/2018 13:28

RNS, mystic Ged!

[broncowarrior] 02/3/2018 12:25

60 odd k as a result of these options according to my calculations.

Beaufort bust, that is a shame. Small brokers really struggling and MIFID II research rules didn't help them at all.

[paleje] 02/3/2018 11:37

Yes a few others have done it already Ged. I think they were brought in for a purpose, I don't personally think we'll be any worse off there are better brokers around.

[ged5] 02/3/2018 11:30

Looking through the various announcements there's at least one that has Beaufort as joint broker. So don't get too excited if you see a second RNS. It might not be about the Ministry of Housing!

[ged5] 02/3/2018 11:06

Just noticed another company make an announcement that it had no broker now. I suppose it doesn't matter so much to SAV since they've still got Finncap.

[paleje] 02/3/2018 10:59

We've lost one of our brokers this morning, Beaufort has gone bust.

[gymratt] 02/3/2018 10:53

Had another nibble @ 6.1p

[paleje] 02/3/2018 10:12

I agree HG, lithium in focus. Oman sounds as if it will get there, like others I can't imagine Housing Dept being a spanner in the works, strange way of working though.

DA is on top of things, making sensible moves and getting on with it. One of our potential competitors on the lithium EMH seem to have run into difficulties with the Czech govt on their Cinvec project, not gloating it could happen to any of us, but reliability and early production will be amongst the deciding factors when offtake negotiations start. World top 5? Would be nice. European No 1 would do for me:)

[ged5] 02/3/2018 10:04

"A world top 5 hard rock lithium deposit"

A bold statement but it does have a ring of truth!

If it does prove to be that good how long will it belong to SAV?

With Al Marjan and Rio on board I can't envisage a TO.

[ged5] 02/3/2018 09:24

I totally agree with your post479 Ed. The Beaufort interview is certainly worth a listen.

How tantalising is today's announcement? Still at least we're almost there.

As I posted earlier options expired this week so as you say, BW extra cash.

[broncowarrior] 02/3/2018 08:15

Can't be any houses around there surely? Thought it would be the first, not the last! Options exercise provide a bit of cash too...

[edgein] 02/3/2018 07:50

Good news, almost there on Oman now too, can't see the ministry of housing having an objection to this mine. :)

Regards,
Ed.

[edgein] 01/3/2018 08:57

Listened to that link you posted again this morning Ged (Post 465). you can tell DA is excited by the quality of all our assets and comparing our asset to those ozzie lith miners valued significantly higher than us. And that's just for the lith. You can get an idea of his longer term plans here when he compares our assets to those companies and talks about new plants in Poland and Hungary for production I guess of Lithium carbonate. They'll need a strong supply of lith concentrate. I guess he has good reason to be excited when the 9Mt is based on just 60 of the 100 drill holes to date on just 3 of the 8 targets along this 10kms. Its gonna get interesting when they'll have 3 rigs drilling lots of these shallow holes this year. Market is completely missing this one on the titanium project let alone this ever growing lith.

Regards,
Ed.

[ged5] 28/2/2018 17:03

"Demand for lithium chemicals is growing rapidly. Unfortunately, the cost of these chemicals is rising, too. Lithium chemicals constitute less than 10% of the cost of lithium ion batteries, but that price is relatively inelastic to demand. Increased use has meant escalation of both product price and demand. In China, pricing for lithium carbonate recently exceeded $15,000/t and there is a shortage of spodumene, the main hard-rock source of lithium. New suppliers and support for the existing industry are both needed."

[ged5] 28/2/2018 14:05

Good points made IB.

Was the concentration plant discussed and dismissed or was it some other processing? My memory fails me.

Yes 10Km across the Mina do Barroso and thats just one small area.

I just noticed eagle eyed Stephens across the way pointed out our new listing in Stuttgart. It first appeared on 12th Feb. I wonder if that was Martin Steinbild's suggestion.

[inbrackets] 28/2/2018 12:10

There are so many news items to come, where do we start.The recent interviews talked about a 10km lithium belt across the Mina d Barossa mining licence. Today's announcement of a scoping study includes a concentration plant to cover the nuclei within the licence area. I was hoping that we may have heard about any further progress on any additional exploration / mining licences in other nearby areas eg Reigoso that could subsequently be feeding in to the scoping study and concentration plant.All bubbling up nicely.

[ged5] 28/2/2018 11:49

I had expected full year results today. Still this was again excellent news.

We will however now require an amendment to the licence which is only for 7Mt. We'll see how supportive the Portuguese government really are.

At least we'll have a good indication of the costs in the summer then straight into the DFS.

[uen_investor2] 28/2/2018 11:33

Serabi does look crazy cheap (SRB)

Buys coming in strongly. 1 MM left of offer...

-Net assets $64million and most of that made up of plant equipment.
-Strong gold production.
-Big increase in cash pile last results
-Turn to profit
-No value added for the gold rise
-Big scope for growth, new drilling to lead to 100k a year production