Ivanho22 wrote: I bought Core Gold shares a few months ago, I happened to see some stuff on Mickey Fulp, even an interview with the CEO who seemed genuine. They had just turned a corner, blue sky ahead, etc. and the upside looked very large. I did also check this forum, I like to check forums when buying something: it is surprising what you can learn. And this forum was surprisingly polite, with some informed comment, and the usual pumpers but no one was disputing the claims. I haven't ever contributed to a forum, and my share holding isn't a big deal for me, but this looks very interesting.
After buying shares I mostly forgot about Core, but when the email alert came that an offer was made, I got interested again. And the offer seemed ok, 44 cents seemed to greatly under value Core , but I bought in the 20s so wasn't concerned. But out of curiosity I checked this forum to see the reaction and it was all anger, name calling, everyone saying it was not just a bad deal, but a very terrible deal, a theft, and the theft was being perpetrated by Core's own BODs, they said.
Hmm, I thought. And then a couple days ago this BOD fires the CEO, and I figured I better look a little more closely. And like WOW.
Now you have all heard of Detour Gold, with all the news coverage. Bigger numbers, but a tempest in a teapot, a family squabble at the annual summer picnic compared to this Core/Titan deal. This is not going to have a kiss and make up moment, there will be no happy ending ending.
I thought maybe this is more like the BreX story, you know that huge scandal from the 90s. But BreX really wasn't that interesting , except that they could fake it all so easily, and then the share price run up by all those crazed people wanting to get rich quick. The helicopter thing was fun for sure, but the actual story not that much, but yet they made a movie about it. And so I got to thinking that this story has much more intrigue, shady dealings, peoples savings being stolen etc. and would make a great Netflix movie.
The first scene opens with Carr and Rowley, it's 2006, and everyone in Australia is happy, flush with cash. And they have big smiles on their faces as some sophisticated folk hand over bundles of cash, which Carr stuffs into a duffel bag marked Mundo Minerals. Then we jump to Brazil, where a couple fresh faced Aussies arrive in a town with the duffel bags, not quite as full, and we show the struggle they have trying to make a silk purse from a sows ear. We jump a couple years ahead and they are trying to get on a helicopter (there has to be a helicopter) , with crowds of locals throwing rocks, hissing, some in tears. And then a lonely miner walking to his hovel, explaining to his wife that their money has all been stolen , that their daughters will need to quit school. Now the daughters a little older, the plain one bent over a machine in a factory, the pretty one, well, we all know what happens to the pretty ones. A jump to Australia, Carr and Rowley drinking in a high class bar, talking to some different sophisticated people, Aussie girls in tight shorts bring the drinks.
And back to South America, this time Peru, the same not so fresh faced mine managers arriving with the same duffel bags, Mundo MInerals crossed out, replaced by Minera Gold. And again the struggle with a dilapitated toll mill, some useless properties, and again people throwing rocks at them when they leave a couple years later.
Flash forward to 2020. A middle aged Canadian woman , a SEC lawyer, in front of a judge explaining how in 2018 Minera came back from the dead as Titan, and how they created this zombie company that had some worthless assets, and a toll mill that never made a penny of profit before being shut down. And how it was all a guise to make it look like a real company, a company with a listing on the ASX , And how it was easy for them to control the share price since Carr and Rowley owned or controlled almost all the shares. So they were able to achieve a market cap that was pure fantasy. We then go to an Aussie judge hearing the same argument and just shrugging his shoulders.
Well, enough for now. But now it gets interesting.