I am tired. A hard day is behind me and now I work through the night preparing to bag a space on the Strand at daybreak to show my respect to the greatest leader that Britain has ever enjoyed. Part of my tiredness is down to launching a new website which I would urge you to check out at www.shareprophets.com, but part is also down to wrestling with an idea of how to attack the corruption at the heart of AIM. Perhaps you can assist? I think out loud.
I spent a good 45 minutes today chatting to a fellow who has tried to gain answers to what seem to me 100% legitimate questions about an AIM listed company. He has approached the company and was blocked. He approached the advisors. Blocked. He tried the police, his MP and the LSE AIM team and was again blocked. Finally, he wrote in public and has now been crushed with a PLC using shareholders cash to shut him up via the courts. But his questions are legitimate ones.
I am, of course, being sued by another AIM company Sefton Resources for accusing it of misleading investors. It has in fact admitted that it has misled investors in an RNS but it wants to shut me up and is trying to bully me into silence. It will fail. I have set up my affairs such that I can afford to take on such bullying. Whatever happens, the only financial losers will be Sefton’s shareholders. But, with the company having admitted that it is a misleader, I am bound to win anyway. If you are a Sefton shareholder you are well used to it wasting your cash on daft projects and so this unwinnable libel case fits in naturally with the long term business plan!
Sefton is an open goal for an investigative journalist of an attack blogging bent. But, in the cesspit that is the bottom end of AIM, there are so many other targets. I now have three very firmly in my sights and when I return from holiday in May hostilities will commence.
For AIM to be credible it needs to cleanse out this stinking and rotting pile of companies that will only destroy value whatever capital is chucked at it. But here is the problem: no-one is prepared to tackle this issue.
The FSA AIM team is useless (please sue me as well). Provide incontrovertible evidence that a company is lying to investors and the best that happens (reference 3DM) is a private censure. Investors are not protected at all and in the case of 3DM it carried on lying for another two years before finally getting a public censure. Investors were not made aware for two years that they had been misled.
Nomads are meant to stop PLCs lying. But they are all so desperate for retainer fee income that few will censure a client who lies as long as they carrying on paying the bills. If you are a PLC who wishes to lie go to a financially challenged Nomad (we all know who I am talking about) and you can say what you want as long as your cheque does not bounce.
The press is not interested in the bottom end of AIM so will not devote resource to holding it to account. Only a few private investors and bloggers will try to expose lies and fraud. But then we get served with libel writs by bully boy City lawyers like Pinsent Masons. As my pal today noted “I have to ensure my kids have something to inherit.” Firms know that most bloggers/private investors will crumble.
And so I ask myself, “how can bent AIM companies be brought to heel?” How can they be exposed so publically in a way that investors are made aware so that even though the useless authorities and conflicted Nomads fail to take action the emptors can truly be caveat? I believe that I have a solution which should allow anyone to report what they seem as an AIM fraud to me with a guarantee of 100% anonymity. Watch this space. If you would like to be kept posted on details of this project please drop me a line on [email protected] marking your email AIM fraud.