Accountability at Casey Research and East Asia Minerals (EAS.v)

We call to account Casey Research because of their constant, unadulterated bullshit claims of "100% winning pick" ratios, neverfail stock selection prowess and more soft soap crap that anyone with a grip on reality could possibly stomach.

Let's be clear: If Casey Research were honest about their true track record, the series of posts here at IKN would not exist. Au contraire, they are bullshit liars, which is why we highlight them so often.

What you're looking at is a stock pick, East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) that has lost 73.4% in the space of four months and it's one that Louis James would rather sweep under the carpet. He's shown no signs of remorse about it either and just keeps calling buy, all the way down. Be a man for once and reap what you sow, epicfail Lobito.

Don't worry, it could be worse...

... you might have recommended East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) to your thousands of loyal subscribers just last week before the resource count this morning blew the stock to smithereens. 

I mean, it takes a special kind of talent to wait on the sidelines for all this time and then jump in at the worst possible moment, a talent that you too, kind and gentle IKN reader, can find in Louis 'Lobito' James of Casey Research. Hey Lobito, I'm still trying to decide which line out of your pump piece from last week I liked the best. I'm down to either...

"... its flagship Miwah project in Indonesia... could well be on its way to a monster gold discovery in the tens of millions of ounces."

 ...or perhaps:

"....it’s the first 43-101-compliant resource estimate that we expect to really drive the market to have another look at Miwah."

Tough choice, but I think I'm going to plump for that second one of yours as the 43-101 resource number today surely did make the market have another look...right before the market hit the panic sell button and thanked the Lord there was a bunch of last minute bagholders on board thanks to you, Lobito.  Anyway, thanks for the guffaws dude. I love comic writing, especially when the writer thinks he's being serious.

Overwhelming Sense of Entitlement, Dundee Securities edition

Another day at One Adelaide Street East (27th floor)

After a little net-casting over today's news on dropped coverage of East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) by Dundee Securities and the capturing of views from several different reliable sources (i.e. ones that are trustworthy...a rare breed in Canuck mining but they still do exist), this humble scribe has been drawn to an inevitable conclusion. The backstory to today's terse droppage is that Dundee has done little more than throw a puerile hissyfit over EAS.v because those poor leeeetle multimillionaires that run the Dundee shop weren't cut in on the latest round of financing.

It seems that Dundee gives much more of a damn about its own in-house back pockets (along with its fragile and already overblown egos) than it does about the wellbeing of its clientele who should (in theory at least) get unbiased analysis of the mining sphere from said house but instead are perhaps only led into those companies that "play ball" with the suits in charge. So in this case, when EAS.v ruined their myopic moneygrabbing plans by cutting them out of the juicy financing, the bleeding hearts that cover EAS.v at Dundee felt all hurt about the lack of cash bungs EAS.v had thrown its way and thusly the poor little overentitled assholes took their toys and stomped off, exit stage left.

The douchebags in Canadian mining aren't confined to junior miner boardrooms, dudettes and dudes. Or in hockeytalk, Dundee can go fuck themselves. Disclosure; no position in EAS.v at all, no recos either way, but it sure is fun following the story for free.

Dundee's terse dropping of East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) coverage

Here's an intruiging one. Dundee Securities today decided to drop East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) from its coverage list. Ok fair enough and a call is a call, but it's the way it was done that raises eyebrows.

East Asia Minerals Corp.

(EAS-V: C$6.20)

Update
August 30, 2010

NOT RATED

12-month target price: N/R

Ron Stewart / (647) 428-8324
rstewart AT dundeesecurities.com
Robert Thaemlitz / (647) 428-8392
rthaemlitzl AT dundeesecurities.com

Dropping Coverage

We Bid You Farewell

We are dropping coverage of East Asia Minerals Corp. (EAS-V), effective immediately our ratings, target prices and estimates should no longer be relied upon. Readers should no longer rely on the comments or recommendations made in respect of the company as no assurance can be given as to the accuracy or relevance going forward.

xxxxxxxxxxx

IKN back. File that under "terse", also kinda mysterious, as what you see above was the whole message (bar the normal disclosure blurbs, of course). Betcha Ron and Robert are getting plenty of phone calls this morning, too. Anyone know any backstory to this? TIA. Finally by way of disclosure, no position in EAS.v. Even though we recently covered the company's ding-dong with Northern Miner this author has no dog running in this game.

Mining PRs and the Ottotrans™, Part 23

Today's example comes from the pages of Northern Miner, online edition out today.

This is what they said:

Apology to East Asia Minerals and Michael Hawkins

In the online story regarding East Asia Minerals published on July 29, 2010, and reprinted in our newspaper (vol. 96, no. 25), we incorrectly stated that East Asia Minerals had not disclosed to its shareholders that a large portion of its tenements in Indonesia is on land designated as protected forest.

In fact, the company wrote in its August 2007 information circular to shareholders that "almost the entire Miwah tenement is in Protected Forest Area" and that "a special permit from the Indonesian Department of Forestry is required to conduct exploitation in such an area."

As such, there is no imputation whatsoever by The Northern Miner that East Asia's President and CEO Michael Hawkins or any other management or directors of East Asia Minerals personally benefited from withholding this information from shareholders.

While it's widely agreed that Indonesia has its challenges with respect to corporate governance, there is also no imputation that a company must engage in illegal activities in order to acquire a special exploitation permit in a protected forest in Indonesia.

A similar retraction and apology will appear in the next paper issue of The Northern Miner, vol. 96, no. 26.

We apologize for and regret any embarrassment, distress, inconvenience or damage to the company and Michael Hawkins resulting from publication of the story.

And this is what it means:

Yeah, errr.....sorry about the $101m our bullshit lies written by a just-out-of-college hack with more bravado than ethics managed to knock off your market cap Mike. Won't happen again, pretty promise.

Handbags at dawn! East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) demands a retraction from Northern Miner

Here's the NR, comment coming up:

August 05, 2010
East Asia Minerals Serves Libel Notice On Northern Miner -- Vancouver-Based Company Demands Apology and Correction

For Immediate Release, August 5, 2010 TSXV: EAS

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- Thursday, August 5, 2010 -- East Asia Minerals Corporation (TSXV-EAS), a Canadian mineral exploration company with its head office in Vancouver, delivered a legal notice today to The Northern Miner newspaper over a recent article which made defamatory and misleading accusations concerning the company's disclosures about Indonesian property currently under exploration.

In a statement released today, Chief Executive Officer and President Michael Hawkins said: "We are extremely disappointed that The Northern Miner published misleading information about our disclosure practices in a prominent article on its website about protected forest in Indonesia. We have asked the newspaper to do the right thing, retract its erroneous accusation that we failed to tell shareholders about the status of the property, and acknowledge that East Asia Minerals made timely and complete disclosure starting nearly three years ago".

In a letter sent to The Northern Miner, the Company expressly reserves the right to file a libel lawsuit to recover damages from The Northern Miner for injury to reputation and financial loss.

About East Asia Minerals Corporation

This isn't really that surprising and I'll tell you why. East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) is a company this author knew little about before last Friday (as mentioned in the post that day, though out of LatAm the drill results had been so good that word of them had filtered through enough times). I'd also never taken a position on the stock (which is still true today, fwiw).

But last weekend, it only took the most basic of DD and asking around a bit for this author to see that the Northern Miner article (pasted here below in its entirety this time, because it's fair game for public material now EAS.v is getting legal on their tushes) was a really biased, misleading and generally bad piece of journalism that was likely written with an a priori agenda. Just for one thing, it took me about five minutes on SEDAR to confirm that EAS.v has indeed made clear and specific public disclosures about the nature of the forestry issues at Miwah, something that Northern Miner said they hadn't done. That alone is libel....probably. So if all it takes this humble scribe is a minimum of snuffling around to find out the facts, why did Northern Miner, the supposed "Bible" of mining journalism (though that mantle has slipped badly over the last few years) decide not to include this basic DD in its report? Gotta make ya wonder....

So anyway, here's the whole allegedly libellous NM report reproduced for public interest. It'll be interesting to see whether NM stands by its crap or goes the humble pie route.

UPDATE: Trish eats it

29/07/2010 13:23:00

East Asia Minerals unresponsive about protected forest in Indonesia

By: Trish Saywell

Why would it take several years for a Canadian company with a history of strong drill results in Indonesia to disclose to its shareholders that a large portion of its tenements in the Southeast Asian nation are on land designated as protected forest where open-pit mining is banned?

It's a question The Northern Miner has asked junior explorer East Asia Minerals(EAS-V) repeatedly since June and has yet to receive a fathomable explanation.

Hong Kong-based chief executive Michael Hawkins -- who is "in the bush" in Indonesia -- according to the company's head of corporate communications Nick Kohlmann, has not responded to a stream of queries. And as for the Toronto-based Kohlmann, he says he "has no details" and isn't "privy to the various ongoing intricacies of the operations, legal agreements, permits, etc," which he explains in an email after six weeks of badgering, "is the responsibility of the senior technical and Indonesia-based staff and Michael Hawkins."

So what gives?

In February Indonesia issued a new regulation (No. 24) that allows mining, power plants and other projects deemed strategically important (such as toll roads, telecommunication network and broadcasting facilities) to take place within protected forest areas, according to Joel Hogarth, a lawyer with O'Melveny & Myers in Singapore. But the regulation, now law, only permits underground mining activities in protected forest, not open-pit mining, which is more commonly used in Indonesia.

Even then it's not guaranteed that an underground mine will ever wind up in production. "While the regulation opens up the possibility of mining in protected forest areas it remains to be seen how easy this will be in practice," Hogarth says. "To my knowledge no such approvals have been granted yet for mining, although there is at least one geothermal project applying for approval under the new regulation."

Hogarth explains that while ‘in principle' licenses (ijin prinsip) can be granted by the Ministry of Forestry for an initial period of up to two years, the full forestry ‘lend-use' licence (ijin pinjam pakai) requires the approval of the House of Representatives (DPR). And such approvals from the DPR "have been difficult to obtain and subject to political considerations."

"It strikes me as a pretty tough procedure," he says in a telephone interview from his home in Singapore. "That's like going to Parliament to get something approved."

Interestingly it was only after repeated queries that East Asia Minerals finally disclosed in its most recent drill results on July 27 that "a large portion of the tenements are currently within Hutan Lindung, the lowest category of Protection Forest." There is no mention of this fact in previous press releases, nor in the company's 2009 annual report.

By contrast, another company, Intrepid Mines (IAU-T) clearly discloses in its press releases and on its website that its Tumpangpitu project in Indonesia is situated within protected forest, "a category of forest land in which Indonesian law restricts activities and prohibits open-pit mining." Intrepid notes that it is working with relevant Indonesian authorities to allow for a review of the status of forest land where it affects the company's operations. As for its Katak prospect, Intrepid explains that it is in a category of land deemed "production forest," which has far fewer development restrictions.

East Asia has yet to specify exactly how much and which of its tenements fall within protected forest. (It has a 70-85% interest in six advanced gold and gold-copper properties covering 400,000 hectares in Aceh Province, Sumatra, and on Sangihe Island in North Sumatra.)

What it does repeat in every press release about its flagship Miwah gold project, a high sulphidation epithermal gold deposit in Aceh Province, Sumatra, however, is that it is in a very similar volcanic setting to the Martabe gold-silver deposit, also in North Sumatra. It notes that the alteration system is of comparable size. But what it fails to point out is that the owner of Martabe, a Hong Kong-based company called G-Resources, plans to mine Martabe as an open-pit.

Hawkins has been selling off shares consistently over the past six months - including a sale of 94,000 shares at $7.91 apiece on April 12. (Over the last year East Asia Minerals has traded in a range of $1.21-$8.73 per share.)

The chief executive held 481,000 shares in the company as of Jan. 12, 2010,) in October 2009, and since then has been selling off his holdings.)

East Asia Minerals' share price has moved from a low of 12¢ a share in November 2008 to $3.90 per share in December 2009 and is currently trading at $6.40 per share.

The junior has about 72 million shares outstanding.

Mining PRs and the Ottotrans™, Part 22

Today we have East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) at its NR out today. Well, better said just one section of the NR as it is seems to be directly related to the questions we asked last Friday about this company that followed on from a Northern Miner report.

This is what they said:

On the corporate front, East Asia Minerals directs interested readers to its website (www.EAminerals.com) where it has added a discussion of the overall positive nature of Indonesia, and in particular Aceh Province, for investment. This discussion is under the Indonesian section and located at Projects / Indonesia / Overview.

In commenting on the investment climate in Indonesia, Michael Hawkins, President and CEO of East Asia Minerals, states that "Indonesia is possibly one of few countries in the world where conditions for mining investment are arguably improving, rather than deteriorating. Whilst as discussed on the website Indonesia is not without challenges, the Company notes that overlapping laws and regulations are not unique to Indonesia. Every project in the world is confronted by a broad range of potential challenges such as environmental, Indigenous peoples, competing land use (such as agriculture), social, NGOs, etc., and the Company notes that there have been potential mines in supposedly low-risk jurisdictions such as Canada that have not gone forward because of "local" resistance. It is more important to note that Indonesia is mining friendly, with a process and a path forward in place for exploration and mine development. Additionally the Company believes it is very important to engage proactively, in a confidential and sensitive way, all potential stakeholders in the areas where it works. In these matters, and with a strong Indonesian experience base, the Board of Directors and Senior Management are confident that the Company is progressing well."

And this is what is means:

That hatchet job by Northern Miner was a one-sided piece of market-scaring bullshit and a pretty disgraceful example of what passes for journalism these days from a publication that used to be known as "The Bible" in mining circles but has gone way downhill since then.

Why is East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) hiding key facts from its shareholders?

The rise of East Asia Minerals (EAS.v) on the back of what can only be described as spectacular drilling results at its Miwah project has been so well documented that even your myopic LatAm anal yeast has heard of the story on numerous occasions (just look at that 12 month chart above for further details). But maybe there's trouble brewing in paradise, as this Northern Miner report dated yesterday below points out. What strikes me as strange here is that the company itself, busy exploring and drilling away over there, claims to have no idea about the laws that will stop the project from developing and the enormously trappy permitting processes it would have to go through even for a sub-optimal underground works.

Northern Miner is a subscription service and they get pretty anal about people pasting their stuff, so here's just the first portion of the report (about as far as I'll push this window, folks). You'll have to click through and sign on to get the rest.

Why would it take several years for a Canadian company with a history of strong drill results in Indonesia to disclose to its shareholders that a large portion of its tenements in the Southeast Asian nation are on land designated as protected forest where open-pit mining is banned?

It's a question The Northern Miner has asked junior explorer East Asia Minerals(EAS-V) repeatedly since June and has yet to receive a fathomable explanation.

Hong Kong-based chief executive Michael Hawkins -- who is "in the bush" in Indonesia -- according to the company's head of corporate communications Nick Kohlmann, has not responded to a stream of queries. And as for the Toronto-based Kohlmann, he says he "has no details" and isn't "privy to the various ongoing intricacies of the operations, legal agreements, permits, etc," which he explains in an email after six weeks of badgering, "is the responsibility of the senior technical and Indonesia-based staff and Michael Hawkins."

So what gives?

In February Indonesia issued a new regulation (No. 24) that allows mining, power plants and other projects deemed strategically important (such as toll roads, telecommunication network and broadcasting facilities) to take place within protected forest areas, according to Joel Hogarth, a lawyer with O'Melveny & Myers in Singapore. But the regulation, now law, only permits underground mining activities in protected forest, not open-pit mining, which is more commonly used in Indonesia.

Even then it's not guaranteed that an underground mine will ever wind up in production. "While the regulation opens up the possibility of mining in protected forest areas it remains to be seen how easy this will be in practice," Hogarth says. "To my knowledge no such approvals have been granted yet for mining, although there is at least one geothermal project applying for approval under the new regulation."

Hogarth explains that while ‘in principle' licenses (ijin prinsip) can be granted by the Ministry of Forestry for an initial period of up to two years, the full forestry ‘lend-use' licence (ijin pinjam pakai) requires the approval of the House of Representatives (DPR). And such approvals from the DPR "have been difficult to obtain and subject to political considerations."

"It strikes me as a pretty tough procedure," he says in a telephone interview from his home in Singapore. "That's like going to Parliament to get something approved." CONTINUES HERE

Disclosure: no position in EAS.v