Translation of Forecast/12 post regarding news article In 2009, Courtenay Wolfe, then executive director of venture capital fund Venture Capital Canada, paid $ 1,680,300 for lunch with Warren Buffett, the billionaire president of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Buffett organizes an auction every year on behalf of Glide, a San Francisco charity that provides food and medical care to those who are homeless, and the winner and up to seven friends can dine with Buffett at the Smith & Wollensky restaurant in downtown Manhattan .
Courtenay Wolfe has more than 20 years of experience in the areas of venture capital and private equity in a wide range of sectors, specializing in corporate strategy, restructuring, strategic negotiations, marketing and business development.
Relentless, from 2008 to 2013, during her tenure as president and chief executive officer of Salida Capital (a Canadian private investment management firm), she led a negotiation, liquidation and recovery, following a series of successful demands for more than three years, Of US $ 350 million of client assets (100% recovery) caught in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
In the past few hours, Canopy Capital Inc., a venture capital company of FB Sciences, Inc. and Vital Alert Communication Inc., became the visible head of a rebellion of Canadian minority shareholders Eco Gold Minerals Corp. (TSX: EOM) that requires convening an Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting to reconstitute the Board of Directors.
In essence, he challenged chief executive officer and co-agent Anna Stylianides, partners Amber Capital LP (Joseph Marie Oughourlian), Paulson & Co. Inc. (billionaire John Paulson) and two other investors because he disagrees with The way they are going to stay with the loot they seek in a court of arbitration against Colombia.
On December 8, 2016, Canadian miner Eco Oro Minerals filed a Request for Arbitration against Colombia before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes of the World Bank in a "hundreds of millions of US $" claim that First Page believes Are US $ 400 million.
The claim refers to Eco Gold's dispute with Colombia in relation to "arbitrary, inconsistent and disproportionate state measures that destroyed the value of its investments in the Colombian mining sector and deprived Eco Oro of its rights under its 3452 concession contract, Which comprises the Angostura gold-silver deposit, in violation of Colombia's obligations under the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. "
Formerly known as Greystar Resources Ltd., in March 2011, after an environmental controversy about the Angostura mine, it decided to withdraw the license application, it was renamed Eco Oro Minerals and to have a market capitalization of 568 million dollars was reduced Then to just $ 32.8 million.
French-born Lehman investor Joseph Marie Oughourlian, owner of Amber Capital, bought 1.8 million shares of Eco Oro Minerals Corp. in September 2012, which accounted for 2.14% of its capital, and then went on to own 17.4 million shares, That is, 20.8% of its outstanding shares.
The three largest shareholders of Eco Oro Minerals became: Amber Capital LP 17,484,143 shares 20.76% of the property; Paulson & Company Inc. 10,774,500 shares 12.79%; International Finance Corporation 9,046,346 shares 10.74% (World Bank International Finance Corporation).
THE CAUSES OF REBELLION
Courtenay Wolfe has just published a statement in which he warns that "we have lost confidence in the Board of Directors and Management," which requires the removal of each of the incumbent directors and the election of six new independent directors.
She proposed to lead the process with the new Board and would be accompanied by Prashant Pathak, Morris Prychidny, Peter McRae, Prakash Hariharan and Allan Bezanson, most of them from Founders Advantage Capital Corp., the company of which she was the CEO From October 2013 to February 2016, and won a millionaire arbitration against the Government of Equatorial Guinea.
In essence the battle that broke out among the shareholders of Eco Oro Minerals, has to do with money. Essentially with the way in which the compensation obtained in the arbitration suit against Colombia will be distributed.
The New Yorker Trexs Investments, LLC, will end up with 51% if it wins the arbitration it will initiate against the Government of Colombia, which it accuses of breaching the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Trexs Investments, LLC, belongs to New York hedge fund manager Tenor Capital Management Company, L.P., a specialist in arbitration and corporate litigation management (restructurings and recapitalizations).
Courtenay Wolfe does not accept an incentive plan granted to the Board which represents 7% of the gross income of the arbitration. 78% of gross arbitrage income would be held by Trexs (Tenor Capital) and Eco Gold CEO Anna Stylianides and majority shareholders Amber Capital LP (Joseph Marie Oughourlian), Paulson & Co. Inc. ( Of billionaire John Paulson), among others.
"Our appointments of independent and highly qualified directors will work with all stakeholders (including the Colombian people and government) and participants in the Canadian capital markets to bring about positive change to improve value for all shareholders," he explained.
On December 20, two minority shareholders of Eco Oro Minerals filed a lawsuit against the Canadian miner for the agreements and transactions it entered into with the New York search fund Tenor Capital Management to finance and file an arbitration suit against the Republic of Colombia.
Since last October, a group of minority shareholders that controlled 19.18% of the ordinary shares of the company, or approximately 39.22% of the voting shares, declared in absentia against the company it accused of To act unfairly with the Securities Commission of British Columbia for the investment agreement he signed with Tenor Capital Management Company, LP.
Prior to the agreement with Trexs (Tenor) the largest shareholders of Eco Oro Minerals had become:
Amber Capital LP, through various funds 24,259,470 shares 22.85%
Paulson & Co. Inc. 12,177,835 11.47%
International Finance Corporation 9,046,346 shares 10.74% (World Bank International Finance Corporation)
Anna Stylianides, CEO, 244,279 shares 0.23%
The IFC announced withdraws from the company as the matter is poorly presented. He appeared to be suing a member and Eco Gold's arbitration request against the Republic of Colombia was filed with the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
Joseph Maria Oughourlian (Paris, 1972) is the creator of the opportunist fund or "vulture fund" founded in 2005 Amber Capital after the split of 16 traders of the investment banking of Socit Gnrale.
Amber Captal recently consolidated as a key player with important interests in various sectors of the Colombian economy. He also holds interests in Canadian oil company Gran Tierra Energy (with 33 oil blocks in Colombia), the second largest shareholder in Spain's Prisa Caracol Radio), on the Colombian Stock Exchange (which it already sold), at the Telecommunication Company of Bogot, ETB, and today controls Azul & Blanco Millonarios Ftbol Club SA Which lost more than $ 20 billion in 2016.
Paulson & Co. Inc., another vulture fund, heavily involved in Argentina's default claims, is owned by John Alfred Paulson, former Boston Consulting Group and former Bear Stearns, with a fortune of close to $ 8.6 billion, Famous because at the close of 2007 Paulson made a personal gain of almost $ 4 billion, the biggest gain in a year in the history of the financial markets, thanks to his commitment to the subprime.
THE ORIGIN OF THE PLEIT AGAINST COLOMBIA
Eco Oro, says, was one of the first foreign mining companies to invest in the country's gold mining sector. Since the mid-1990s, the Company has invested more than US $ 250 million to develop the Angostura mining project by completing more than 360,000 meters of drilling and 3,000 meters of underground development.
As a result of these investments, Eco Oro declared resources for the Angostura deposit where they did not exist before and doubled those resources between 1999 and 2015. The deposit is now one of the largest in Colombia. Eco Oro made these investments depending on Colombia's commitments in its mining titles, including Concession 3452, which was stabilized in accordance with the Mining Code of Colombia of 2001.
The Colombian government reiterated its support for the project, declaring it a "project of national interest" in 2011 and again in 2013. "Eco Oro has been praised for its social programs and environmental practices, receiving awards both internationally and by the Colombian authorities "He explains now.
Despite these commitments and guarantees, Eco Oro continues, the Colombian government, through the National Mining Agency (ANM) issued a decision in August 2016 depriving Eco Oro of vital rights under Concession 3452 on the basis of a Decision of the Constitutional Court issued in February 2016, reported Eco Oro on August 11, 2016.
That decision came five months after the company announced on March 7, 2016 that it had formally notified Colombia of its intention to arbitrate a dispute arising under the Free Trade Agreement.
"Eco Gold rights face the threat of further encroachments given the risk that the Constitutional Court and the National Mining Agency will issue future decisions, further reducing the area accessible to Eco Oro. As a consequence of these uncertainties, the Project Can not currently be licensed, "he says.
The result of Colombia's measures is that resources remaining in Concession 3452 that could be accessible are insufficient to justify the significant investments required to develop an underground mine. The project has become unfeasible.
As Eco Oro explains in its Request for Arbitration, the company is an investor protected under the Free Trade Agreement and, therefore, is entitled to the protections established in the investment chapter of that agreement.