Did the CEO Insider Trade?If you read the actual Mitsui Matsushima Co., Ltd. Release it gives more information, especially about Thyssen selling Mitsui Matsushima its European & South American
Marketing for Cline Coal Resources.
It also says the initial sale occured July 4th, 1 day after Ken Bates sold shares on July 3, 2008.
Here is the reasoning;
1. Thyssen Krupp had European and South American Marketing rights to Cline Coal Reserves.
2. On June 23, 2008 Cline announced the Mitsui loan MOA and in it it stated ;
"The memorandum of understanding also provides that Cline and MMI will enter into a coal marketing and sales agency agreement under which MMI will be the
exclusive marketing and sales agent worldwide with respect to the sale of all New Elk coals."
3. According to the Sedar Early Warning Report and the Mitsui Matsushima Report the agreement was made June 13, 2008 between Mitsui Matsushima and Thyssen Krupp.
4. If Cline & Bates did not know Thyssen was selling it shares and Thyssen had Europen & South American Marketing rights to Cline's Coal (This reported by Mitsui in its release
..."As a result of this transaction the company will aquire from Thyssen Krupp the European and South American marketing rights for coking coal from the coal reserves owned by Cline"...see link below) , then how on June 23, 2008 could they announce in that Memorandum of Understanding that Mitsui would get worldwide marketing rights?
("The Memorandum of Understanding also provides that Cline and MMI will enter into a coal marketing and sales agency agreement under which MMI will be the exsclusive marketing and sales agent worldwide with respect to the sale of all New Elk coals") (
https://www.clinemining.com/news/pdf/080623.pdf)
5. On July 4, 2008 Mitsui makes its initial purchase of shares from Thyssen at $1.41.
6. Coincidentally Ken Bates sells 50,000 shares of CMK for $1.90 on July 3rd, just one day before Mitsui's initial purchase of 4.4m of the shares at $1.41
So did Ken Bates know about all of this? One would reasonably argue that how could he have not known about Thyssen selling its shares if in a news release prior to that CMK stated that Mitsui would get exclusive rights. Thyssen selling its stock would be material information, yet Ken Bates' trade occured before any of the Mitsui buying Thyssen stock was announced, and at a price below what Cline was currently trading at.
Read the following Mitsui Release. Strange how much more information it it has on the sale of the Marketing rights for Mitsui in it than what Cline had disclosed.
https://www.irstreet.com/en/document.php?brand=128&document_url=http%3A//ircms.irstreet.com/contents/data_file.php%3Ftemplate%3D51%26brand%3D128%26folder_contents%3D15710%26src_data%3D60677%26filename%3Dpdf_file.pdf&url=http%3A//www.irstreet.com/en/brand.php%3F%26content%3Dbrand_newsrelease%26brand%3D128
Also note the part that states that Mitsui potentially would hold 31% of Clines shares.